7. Vétheuil to Jambville

The church of Notre-Dame de Vétheuil surprises by its size, its plan with double collaterals and its particularly rich and varied furniture. It stands out from the village churches of the French Vexin, because Vétheuil is in the Middle Ages a village of some importance. If Merovingian sarcophagi have been found, the first constructions are attested in the 12th and 13th centuries, then in the 16th century. The western portal in Renaissance style is remarkable.
At the tip of the new cemetery remains a very beautiful cross pattée, known as the Cross of Jerusalem or Maltese Cross.

In the 10th and 11th centuries the lands of Saint-Martin-la-Garenne belonged to the Viscounts of Mantes. Two charters ratified this donation to the Bec-Hellouin Abbey in Normandy, which founded a priory under the rule of Saint-Benoit. The monks stayed there until the 16th century. The priory with its vast land estate remains under the protection of the Bec-Hellouin Abbey. During the Revolution the estate was sold as national property and the buildings were transformed into dwellings.

In the 12th century Pope Innocent II confirmed the donation by William the Conqueror to the Abbey of Saint-Wandrille (Upper Normandy) of the church of Folainville. The bell tower and the annex building which serves as a sacristy remain from this period. The time of the construction of the first church is not known.

The seigneury of Fontenay was given to the abbey Saint-Père-en-Vallée de Chartres in 974.
Placed under the patronage of Saint Denis, the church of Fontenay, dating from the 12th century, is composed of a flamboyant nave with three narrow aisles, whose vault was redone in the 16th century, with a framework still visible in the attic, and a Romanesque choir with a polygonal three-sided apse. The 12th century bell tower is illuminated on each side by two semicircular bays. The facade was redone in 1885.

The north wall of the nave dates from the construction of the church in the 12th century. Traditionally in Vexin many churches have a bell tower at the crossing of the transept, the church of Saint-Séverin is no exception to this tradition. To the east of the transept, the choir consists of a square bay and a polygonal apse of the Renaissance, which is only remarkable for the baroque stone altarpiece it contains, and its decoration on the outside. Unequal side chapels occupy the corners between the transept crossbars and the choir. The northern chapel is thought to date from the 13th century, with a somewhat rustic Gothic architecture, and the northern chapel displays the style of the late Flamboyant Period, shortly before the mid-16th century. The nave and its side aisle are in the flamboyant style, and are fairly representative of the post-Hundred Years War reconstruction in French Vexin.

The church, a listed municipal building, is remarkable for its vaulted choir and barrel vault (late 11th century) and for the geminated bays of the bell tower (12th century) topped by a gabled roof.
This Romanesque bell tower, one of the oldest in Vexin, rises above a ribbed vault on four massive pillars decorated with variously sculpted capitals.
The 13th and 14th century chapels, the nave rebuilt between 1857 and 1863, illustrate the developments linked to the development of the history of the village.
Placed under the name of Saint-Sulpice, the parish was served until 1793 by the canons regular of the Order of Premonstratensian founded by Saint Norbert. At present it is part of the parish sector of Fontenay-Saint-Père, diocese of Versailles.

Jambville Castle is based on 13th century vaulted cellars and replaces a first castle from the 14th century.
The second castle was built in the 17th century around the tower with a spiral staircase. In front of this building was a French garden. In the 1760s, the de Maussion family, whose arms still decorate the castle, bought the property and transformed it entirely.
The castle was enlarged and the main body was built with its two pediments. The building is then oriented north-south. The French garden is replaced by an English park decorated with follies (decorative monuments) such as the Greek temple, the pheasant pond or St Damien. The avenue of lime trees is then created to give this magnificent perspective.
Today the castle has been a training centre for the Scouts and Guides of France since 1952.

The construction of the church of Jambville took place between the 11th and 16th centuries. Originally consisting of a Romanesque, timber-framed nave, a bay under the bell tower and a square choir, it was extended at the end of the 13th century with a chapel to the south and a large stone spire, then in the 16th century with a second nave to the south. The church was then vaulted and paved with the current red tiles. Notre Dame de l'Assomption is thus a good witness of the transition from Romanesque to Gothic. The Romanesque octagonal bell tower and its Gothic stone spire are today the only elements worthy of interest outside. Inside, the nave and its side aisle vaulted at the same height form an almost homogeneous whole in the flamboyant Gothic style. The base of the mid-12th century bell tower and its southern crosspiece (13th century) are of a beautiful effect thanks to a skilful restoration, which erases the mutilation of the capitals and the irregularities thanks to the reconstruction of the architectural polychromy in the taste of the Middle Ages.