Chêne-chapelle d'Allouville-Bellefosse

Allouville-Bellefosse

This immense hollow oak, struck by lightning at around 500 years old, has housed two stacked chapels since 1696 — Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix and the hermit's chamber — built by abbé Jacques Delalande du Détroit, the village priest, who placed a small statue of the Virgin in a crack in the trunk to pray for peace during the wars afflicting the Pays de Caux; an external spiral staircase provides access. Listed as a Historic Monument in 1932 thanks to the efforts of naturalist Henri Gadeau de Kerville, then inscribed on the inventory of intangible cultural heritage in 2009. During the Revolution, a villager renamed it the "Temple of Reason" to save it from destruction. It remains a site of Marian pilgrimage, with a mass celebrated every 15 August.

Getting there : Public site, visible from the village square, Boucles de la Seine Normande regional nature park

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

Ambient sound