Poitiers Cathedral, Catholic cathedral in Poitiers, France.

Poitiers Cathedral is a hall church of Angevin Gothic style, with a nave flanked by two aisles of nearly equal height and width that narrow toward the west. Its light beige and grey stone facade has a central pointed gable with a rose window, flanked by two unfinished towers, the taller topped by a spire. The building is 94 metres long, and the central vault rises 27 metres above the pavement.

Construction began after 1150 on the initiative of the Bishop of Poitiers and the chapter of Saint-Pierre, and the cathedral was consecrated on 17 October 1379. It was built in seven successive campaigns without a fixed plan, so the nave vault was raised from 23 to 27.9 metres in the early 13th century. English troops of the Earl of Derby pillaged it in 1346, and Huguenots damaged it in 1562; from 1793 to 1795 it served as a Temple of Reason.

The end window, the Crucifixion Window, was completed around 1165 and shows Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine holding a model of the window in its lower quatrefoil, beside scenes of the crucifixion of Peter. The choir stalls were carved between 1235 and 1257. Until the Revolution a chapter of canons maintained the daily service here.

The cathedral stands north of the baptistery Saint-Jean, inside the old Gallo-Roman wall, and its west facade faces the Place Charles de Gaulle. The nave and both aisles are nearly the same height, so the 12th- and 13th-century glass of the choir and transepts is best read in morning light. Look for the cannonball marks fired from the Dunes on the chevet during the 1569 siege.

The Christmas 1681 fire destroyed the organ and damaged the rose window, which was rebuilt in 1687 with a more florid design close to that of the north transept rose of Notre-Dame de Paris. The replacement organ was begun by François-Henri Clicquot, who died at Pentecost 1790, and finished by his son Claude-François, handed over in March 1791.