St. Martin's Church

The Saint-Martin church is a Catholic parish church located in Labbeville, in the Val-d'Oise. It consists of a nave covered with a remarkable 16th-century panelled roof; a north aisle with a false barrel vault; and five east bays with ribbed vaults, divided into two vessels. The church was first documented in 1066. The plan of the nave without aisles could date back to this period. Otherwise, the present church is mainly the result of several construction campaigns at the end of the Romanesque period and the beginning of the Gothic period, around the middle of the 12th century. At first, the nave was provided with side aisles, and the transept was rebuilt. Only the north aisle remains since the fire of 1821, and the north crossing was reworked a few decades after its construction when the chapel of the Virgin was added to the east. The transept crossing lost its primitive Romanesque or Gothic character when the vault supports were reworked after the Hundred Years War. Better preserved is the last bay of the choir, which was added at the same time as the chapel of the Virgin, as shown by its Romanesque capitals, and the cornice and buttresses of the chevet, also Romanesque. In the 13th century, the chevet was provided with a large window with a radiating network, and the western façade received a large rose window and a new portal. The latter was mutilated by a neo-classical restoration, and sheltered under a porch of 1811. The side belfry dates only from 1862, and replaces the Romanesque belfry built above the south cross, destroyed by fire in 1821. The side elevations of the choir are hidden by annexed buildings, and for this reason and the various alterations made over the centuries, the Romanesque character of the building is hardly visible on the outside. The church of Saint-Martin was listed as a historical monument by decree of June 16, 1926, and benefited from restoration work in the 1980s. It is now part of the parish of Nesles-la-Vallée, and only occasionally hosts Sunday masses.