Église Saint-Madeleine, Trie-Château

Sainte-Madeleine Church is a Catholic parish church located in Trie-Château, a commune in the French Vexin region, in the French department of Oise and the Hauts-de-France region. Organized lengthwise, it is composed of a late Romanesque narthex from the 1160s; a single Romanesque nave from around 1100; and a Gothic choir of two bays from a hundred years later. The narthex, with its exuberantly decorated facade, and its equally richly decorated ancient north side portal, is one of the most extravagant Romanesque works in the Vexin. It is often compared to the north cross of the church of Saint-Etienne in Beauvais. However, only the first floor is authentic, except for some damaged elements that were almost identically restored in 1860/67. The upper parts are a neo-Romanesque creation by the architect Aymar Verdier. Inside, the narthex was either reworked or never completed, as it is not vaulted, and it is doubtful that this was ever the case. It is thus integrated into the nave, but is nevertheless attractive because of the interior decoration of the windows, which is almost analogous to the exterior elevations. The nave itself is of little interest, but it shares with the narthex a flamboyant gothic frame with a sculpted eaves and grotesque human heads, rusticated and naive. A triumphal arch of limited dimensions opens onto the Gothic choir built around 1200 on the site of the old Romanesque sanctuary. This choir is the only part of the church that is vaulted with ogives. Its architecture is of a good standard, as underlined by the decoration of the windows, but it also makes certain compromises imposed by economic constraints, such as the use of rubble stones and non-monolithic columns. The flat chevet is lit by a triplet, which recalls that a triplet of three Romanesque bays from Trie-Château is on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The church is classified as a historical monument by list of 1862. It was at the center of the Vexin-Nord parish until the creation of a single parish for the part of the Vexin affiliated with the diocese of Beauvais, in 2015.