Église Saint-Sulpice d'Aulnay-sous-Bois

Aulnay-sous-Bois

In the heart of the Vieux-Pays of Aulnay, far from the housing blocks and business parks, survives one of the oldest churches in Seine-Saint-Denis. A charter of 1061–1095 already mentions a sanctuary here, authorised by King Philip I and the Bishop of Paris; at the end of the 11th century, the local lords, Vautier and his sons, gave the church and its lands to the monks of Cluny, who established a priory here. In the 12th century, stonemasons in the service of the great Burgundian abbey raised the present building, on a Latin-cross plan, whose Romanesque choir has come through nine centuries. The history of the place is surprisingly eventful: in the early modern period, the Coitier lords dug the moats of their neighbouring château and the spoil gradually buried the base of the church — which is why one still goes down a few steps to enter it today, as into a crypt. The Revolution smashed the capitals and the seigneurial tombs, the lead of whose coffins was salvaged; the bell tower was restored in 1873. In spite of everything, Saint-Sulpice remains, with its Cluniac stones reused from the original church, an intact fragment of the medieval countryside of the Pays de France, fifteen minutes from the RER. A discreet, moving place, where rural Seine-Saint-Denis still shows through.

Getting there : 2 rue de Sevran, in the Vieux-Pays of Aulnay. RER B, Aulnay-sous-Bois station (about 1 km on foot). Generally open on Wednesday and Saturday mornings (9.30am–12pm); enquire with the parish. Coordinates: approach point at the church.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound