Beauvais - Saint-Étienne

The church was known already in the 11th century, when it was located outside the city walls.

In 1180 this church burnt down and got rebuilt in the 12th/13th century in the in a late Romanesque style. The collegiate church served the parish, while the Bishop tried to erect only about 400 metres away the huge cathedral in the "modern" Gothic style.

So it was decided, to replace the Romanesque, "old fashioned" church here with a new one, as well in Gothic style. The Romanesque choir got teared down. Around 1520 the late Gothic choir with side chappels - and elegant flying buttresses (seen here) was completed. The new apse was much longer, much wider and much higher, than the old one had been.

After the crossing tower of the neighbouring cathedral had collapsed in 1573, the architects stopped the work here - and started to stabilize the structure of Saint Etienne. This was done with the massive tower end of the 16th century. So the Romanesque transept and the nave survived.

During the early years of the French Revolution the church got vanadlized and then used as storage space. It got restored and was used as parish church, but got severely damaged by the German Luftwaffe in 1940. To restore that took 14 years after WWII.