Chapelle Saint-Nicolas des mariniers du Bas-Village

Vitry-le-François

The Bas-Village was a boatmen's village even before the town was founded: in 1545 François I created Vitry-le-François to replace the neighbouring market town of Vitry-en-Perthois, destroyed by war. The boatmen of the Marne stayed on, and in 1637 they built themselves their chapel. It is small, of timber framing faced with beech laths, and it says at a glance who paid for it: ships' anchors are carved inside as well as out, and the patron is Saint Nicholas, protector of the people of the water. Nothing better illustrates what the Greek bishop of Myra became in the West. On the Marne as on the Meuse, the Moselle, the Oise or the Seine, the boatmen's confraternities placed themselves under his name, because the legend shows him boarding a ship in distress to take the helm himself. The boatmen's chapels are almost all lost, altered or pulled down; this one has held out, protected as a monument historique since 1935. It is a modest building that one looks at as a document: the collective ex-voto of a trade.

Wikipédia — Chapelle Saint-Nicolas de Vitry-le-François ↗

Getting there : North of the grid-plan centre, about a kilometre from the place d'Armes, on the Marne side; street parking. A small wooden building, ordinarily closed: one walks round it and sees the anchors carved on the façades. Openings are rare and announced locally.

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

Ambient sound