Église Sainte-Marie d'Anglet, Catholic church in Chambre d'Amour district, Anglet, France

Église Sainte-Marie d'Anglet is a stone church measuring 12 metres wide, with a 21.35-metre nave and a 13-metre choir. Its facade is crowned by a triangular Labourdin gable that serves as a bell tower holding two bells, Marie-Claire and Joseph. Inside, two rows of tribunes line the sides and the counter-facade, and the raised high altar is a piece of local woodwork.

A first chapel was built in 1867 on land above the Chambre d'Amour cliff, given by Mme Cazères, née Lecaé, for Sunday mass. It became a parish church in 1921 under curé Rouquette. Too small, it was replaced by a new church designed by Pierre Fonterme and built by Charles Hébrard, whose first stone was blessed on 28 September 1930 and which was dedicated on 11 September 1932. The old chapel was demolished in 1946 and the church was inscribed as a monument historique in 2014.

Until the 1970s men sat in the two rows of wooden tribunes along the sides and against the rear wall, while women and small children stayed below. The choir frescoes by Berthe Grimard show the Virgin in majesty with the Child and eleven angels on gold leaf. Two 1938 mosaics by Maumejean flank the transept: the Sacred Heart on the left, the Flight into Egypt on the right.

The church stands at the northern edge of the Chambre d'Amour district, near the Cinq-Cantons boundary, on the site chosen when the old cliff chapel became too small. The former chapel site is marked by its cross behind the roundabout, a short walk from the ocean beaches. Look for the small dark sign with a white "P" on the lower right wall of the facade.

The church is listed as a monument historique since 2014, not 2015. Its triangular gable serves as a bell tower holding two bells named Marie-Claire and Joseph, and a model of a cod-fishing boat hangs from the vault as an ex-voto inscribed "Jeune Française - Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, 1906".