Buildings
Besides the chief basilica Saint Wandrille built seven other churches or oratories both inside and outside the monastic enclosure. All of these have either perished in the course of time, or been replaced by others of later date, except for the chapel of St. Saturnin, which stands on the hillside overlooking the abbey. It is one of the most ancient ecclesiastical buildings now existing and, though restored from time to time, is still substantially the original construction of Saint Wandrille. It is cruciform, with a central tower and eastern apse, and is a unique example of a 7th-century chapel.
The parish church of the village of St.-Wandrille also dates from the saint's time, but it has been so altered and restored that little of the original structure remains.
The buildings were damaged by bombing in 1944. A new abbey church was consecrated on 12 September 1970.
Read more about this topic: Fontenelle Abbey
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“The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter’s at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also,—faint copies of an invisible archetype.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)