Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Chaumont-en-Vexin, Gothic parish church in Chaumont-en-Vexin, France
Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Chaumont-en-Vexin is a Gothic parish church featuring high arches supported by slender pillars that create an open interior. Large windows flood the nave with natural light and showcase prismatic vault designs throughout the space.
The church was built in a single campaign between about 1530 and 1554, entirely in the Flamboyant Gothic style. The master mason who supplied the plan was a close collaborator of Jean Grappin, and the design drew on the collegiate church of Gisors. The bell tower was left unfinished, and the second tower and the first bay of the nave with the west facade were never built.
The 16th-century choir stalls came from the collegiate church of Gisors, not from this parish. Six windows in the transept and ambulatory still contain mostly Renaissance glass, alongside older fragments scattered across several other windows. Sunday Mass is celebrated here every week at 10:30 for the parish of Saint-François d'Assise du Vexin, which covers forty-eight communes.
The church sits on an eastern slope and is easily reached on foot from the village center. Visitors should note that the main entrance is positioned on the north side of the transept, which helps with orientation when arriving.
The church stands on a terrace cut into the castle hill, barely larger than the building itself, with retaining walls above the gardens to the south and east. Because the slope left no room for a western approach, the main portal was placed in the north transept, and no door faces the town.
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