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Key figures

Origin and history

The former Priory of Notre-Dame d'Yron was founded in 1115 thanks to the land donation of Agnes de Montigny, Countess of Gannelon. Depending on the Abbey of the Holy Trinity of Tiron (Thiron-Gardais), this Benedictine priory played a spiritual and social role in the region. Its architecture, marked by a unique nave in wooden shingles, preserves elements of the 12th and 13th centuries, including trilobed tympanes and 16th century pierces.

At the beginning of the 16th century, the east facade and interior distribution were rearranged, reflecting renaissant influences. A wooden staircase was added in the 17th century, but the site gradually declined: in the 18th century, it was nothing more than a simple farm of Yron, fragmented by the Revolution. The house, with a barlong plan on three levels, houses a spiral staircase in a pentagonal tower, decorated with typical Renaissance sculptures in the Loire Valley.

The wall paintings of the 12th and 14th centuries, restored in the 20th century, bear witness to its artistic importance. Ranked a historical monument (chapelle in 1929, house in 2004), the priory illustrates the religious and architectural heritage of Perche and Beauce, between Centre-Val de Loire and Pays de la Loire. Its history is also part of that of medieval pilgrimages, Cloyes serving as a stop on the road to Santiago de Compostela.

The site, now shared between communal and private property, preserves traces of its monastic past. Its current address, 8 rue du Prieuré in Cloyes-les-Trois-Rivières, recalls its anchoring in a territory marked by the history of the Tironian abbeys and local seigneuries, such as that of the Marquis d'Argent de Deux-Fontaines, mayors of Cloyes in the 19th century.

The confluence of the Loir and Egvonne, close to the priory, has shaped the local landscape and economy, between Beauceronne agriculture and percheron handicrafts. The industrial lime oven of the 19th century, still visible in Cloyes, bears witness to this economic diversity, while the priory remains a symbol of the medieval and reborn heritage of Eure-et-Loir.

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