Collégiale Notre-Dame de Mehun-sur-Yèvre, Romanesque church in Mehun-sur-Yèvre, France.
Collégiale Notre-Dame is a Romanesque church in Mehun-sur-Yèvre featuring a horseshoe-shaped ambulatory around the choir and radiating chapels extending outward from the center. This architectural layout creates distinct spaces within the building and organizes the interior in a way that guides visitors through the structure.
Construction began in the early 11th century, reusing elements of the old castrum and leaning on the town walls; a primitive building from the late 10th century may have preceded it. The nave was enlarged northward in the 12th century, and the bell tower-porch was built after 1150. Huguenots pillaged the church in 1562, and lightning set it on fire on 21 August 1910, destroying the upper nave and tower and melting the bells.
The church belonged to the Bishopric of Bourges, and the Greek cross on the porch marks this link. The south Gothic chapel, built in 1466 for Regnault Thierry, surgeon to the king and dean of the chapter, carries his arms and an inscription on the keystone of its vault.
The church sits between the castle and the old town of Mehun-sur-Yèvre in the Cher department of the Centre-Val de Loire region. Visitors can reach it easily on foot since it is centrally positioned within the town and surrounded by local streets.
The bell tower-porch built after 1150 rests on the town wall and overhangs the Grands moulins; it served as a covered passage for pedestrians between the upper town, the castle and the lower town. Its upper storey was removed during restoration after the 1910 fire, and old postcards on the Cher archives site show its former stone spire.
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