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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Collège Saint-André de Chartres, built in the 12th century, replaces a 10th-century building destroyed by a fire in 1134. Only the crypts, built on the remains of a Gallo-Roman amphitheatre according to tradition, survived. The present church, completed in the second half of the 12th century, was erected as a collegiate church in 1108. His choir, supported by an arch spanning the Eure in the 13th century, was rebuilt in the 16th century by Jehan de Beauce. A second arch, extending the first to the seventeenth century, carried the chapel of the Virgin, creating an architectural ensemble including cloister, Hôtel-Dieu and cemeteries.

During the Revolution, the church was closed to worship in 1791, its arrow demolished, and its painting of the high altar (the Martyr of St.Andre by Sébastien Bourdon) transferred to the Museum of the Augustins of Toulouse in 1803. Transformed into a forage store, it suffered the collapse of the Chapel of the Virgin in 1805, then the demolition of the choir in 1827 for security reasons. In the 19th century it served as a carpentry workshop and was damaged by two fires (1861 and 1944).

Since the 1980s, an ambitious restoration has revived the collegiate church and its crypts, converting them into a cultural and artistic place. The neighborhood, the historic heart of the Saint-André Fair (still existing today), bears witness to its medieval role as an economic and religious pole. The 1582 glass windows, painted by Marine Le Vavasseur, and the arches spanning the Eure remain emblematic elements of this monument classified in 1840.

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