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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Gallo-Roman Theatre of the Câteliers, located in the Andelys in the Eure, is an ancient performance building built in the 1st or 2nd century AD. With a natural slope, it measures 120 m in diameter, making it one of the ten largest theatres in Gaul. Its partially preserved remains include limestone and flint walls, as well as a cavea with missing stands, suggesting mixed use for games and shows. Ranked a Historic Monument in 1928, it bears witness to the importance of cultural infrastructures in the Civitas des Véliocasses.

The site was discovered by Léon Coutil in 1927, who also identified a nearby villa (the Marguerite). The initial excavations, followed by limited research in 1955, revealed the angles of the stage wall and the foothills, but no comprehensive studies were published. Today, the theatre is covered by dense vegetation, and only the plans of the 1920-1950s document its architecture. Its present state and absence of clear vestiges of the orchestra have led to the hypothesis that it could be a Gallo-Roman amphitheatre with incomplete cellara.

The monument is part of a dense network of sixteen performance buildings in ancient Upper Normandy, less than 40 km apart. Built 370 m south of a villa, it overlooks the valleys of the Gambon and the Peace Creek, illustrating the adaptation of the Romans to local topographical constraints. Local materials (calcareous, flint) and the absence of architectural terracotta in the still standing walls point to pragmatic construction, perhaps influenced by limited resources or regional traditions.

The first records of the site date back to 1863, when Julien-Ludovic Brossard de Ruville evoked the Noyers mountain without clearly identifying it. One of the rare artifacts discovered is a white marble inscription fragment, which is now in the Musée d'Evreux. Despite its early ranking, the theatre remains unknown to the general public, due to lack of accessible documents or recent illustrations. Its history thus reflects the challenges of preserving ancient remains in rural areas, where erosion and vegetation threaten their integrity.

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