The best traffic-free bike rides around Courtalain

Placed under the patronage of Saint Hilaire, this parish was given by Gannelon de Montigny, lord of the place, to the abbey of Marmoutier around 1042. Its reconstruction probably dates from this period; it then became a priory. The church has a rectangular nave ending in a choir with a flat chevet. An examination of the masonry easily reveals two distinct periods of construction: the Romanesque period and the Renaissance. Built of flint rubble with rendering, the western part of the building appears to date from the 11th or 12th century. A limestone cornice supported by rather crude corbels underlines the base of the roof. To the south, two narrow Romanesque windows flared inwards light the nave. To the north, the bays were later reworked and enlarged. On this same side, a Romanesque doorway was walled up; It allowed the church to connect with a building whose traces of detachment remain. The bell tower was built to the north of the Romanesque nave, extending the western façade. The absence of a connection between the east and west walls of the bell tower and the north wall of the nave clearly indicates that it is an entirely later construction. However, its crowning is much later, as evidenced by its cornice, whose molding is in the classical style. Flanked by obliquely angled buttresses, it is covered with a saddleback roof. The eastern half of the church appears to be an extension built during the Renaissance period. Its ogee-shaped cornice and the decoration of the eastern gable, as well as the moldings of the buttress bands, attest to this dating. A vast rectangular choir then appears to have replaced a semicircular Romanesque apse; the eastern gable and the southern and northern façades were then pierced with networked bays. In the lower part of the north façade, projecting ashlars appear to have supported the roof of a lean-to building. To the south, a sacristy was built in the 19th century. Inside, the entire building is covered with a paneled vault with exposed tie beams and kingposts. The 18th-century high altar is surmounted by an Assumption of the Virgin inspired by Murillo's. For the restoration of the roofs and façades, the Sauvegarde de l'Art Français (French National Art Protection Agency) awarded a grant of €30,490 in 2001.

The church dates from the 12th century and was remodeled in the 15th or 16th century, its buttresses and bell tower date from the 19th century. It houses a wrought iron communion table from the 18th century.

In 1133, Geoffroi, Viscount of Châteaudun, founded a priory dependent on the abbey of Tiron, in the diocese of Chartres, in this place. When he died, his wife, Helvise de Mondoubleau, built the church around 1140. The church is formed of a long nave ending in a semicircular apse. It has retained several narrow bays, with a semicircular arch, very flared towards the inside. In the 16th century, a chapel was added to the south of the church, a paneling with exposed tie beams above the nave and the choir, and a mass of carpentry to the west which supports the spire of the bell tower on pointed arches. The choir has a trefoiled piscina from the 14th century. In 1660, Jean Gry, a carpenter from Vendôme, executed the altarpiece and the following year, Pierre Janvier, a painter from Mondoubleau, painted the Resurrection which decorates it. The church houses two funerary slabs, one of a priest who died in 1658, the other of François Leboulx, Lord of Chauvellières, who died in 1691.

This church contains 14th century wall paintings. These paintings were discovered in 1895. They formerly occupied the entire width of the western wall of the nave. The central part was destroyed following the renovation of the door. The left side represented paradise. Of the bust of Christ, in a trilobed medallion, which occupied the center, there remains only a fragment of the cruciform halo. The rest of the composition is divided into rectangular compartments, each enclosing, in the surviving part, a figure of a crowned chosen one. On the right, hell is represented by a cauldron in which several characters are immersed, including a pope, a bishop, a monk, a king, a queen. Above, a woman with her legs apart. On the right, an enormous horned demon sticks out its tongue. On the left, another carries a basket filled with the damned and is about to plunge a woman into the cauldron. Construction periods: 14th century

The Saint-Lubin church, built on a sloping site, is a vast building with juxtaposed constructions, bearing witness to renovations and additions up to the 19th century, the oldest distinguished by the presence of grison, the most recent by limestone and flint. The sanctuary was ceded in 1077 by the monks of Saint-Denis de Nogent-le-Rotrou to the monks of the Saint-Père de Chartres abbey. Built in the 11th-12th century, the nave extended by a semi-circular apse is the oldest part of the church, in Romanesque style. In the thickness of the north walls of the nave are still visible the grison bonds which bear witness to the original openings. The building was considerably enlarged in the 15th and 16th centuries by the construction of a large transept, formed of two chapels, and a south aisle forming an alignment of gables attached to the slopes decorated with leafy motifs and finished with chimeras. The construction of the north aisle, just begun, was not finished. On the outside, on the west wall of the chapel, we can see the beginning of a first bay (stone arch and walls removed that remained unfinished). On the gable of the north transept, the walled door can be seen from the pointed arch and the ornate pinnacles, characteristic of the end of the 15th century. In the center, two animals present a coat of arms. On each side of the door, niches with canopies once housed statues. Above, we can still see a coat of arms presented by two bearded figures and probably surmounted by God the Father. According to local tradition, all or part of the extensions were due to the generosity of Florimont Robertet, who owned the barony of Brou from 1509 until his death in 1527, and it was because of this that the work was interrupted. Occupied by the revolutionaries, the building became a ten-day temple in 1794; it was finally returned to worship in 1802. Burnt down by lightning in 1813, the upper part of the bell tower, which was a slender spire, was replaced by the construction of a square limestone tower pierced with louvers. On the southern part of the bell tower, a turret provides access to the bells. In the southern part of the nave, a door, now blocked and highlighted by a basket-handle arch topped with a pinnacle, provided access to the cemetery that once surrounded the church. The building can boast of having preserved very uniform oak furniture, most of which was made in the second half of the 18th century.

Building from the 12th, 15th and 17th centuries, remarkable from a distance with its bell tower whose spire soars 52 m high. The vault of the vast nave is paneled in Norwegian fir. The Renaissance entrance door is topped with a double pediment. The church has 17th century furniture of Breton inspiration, the sculptures of which are the work of the Breton Charles Roscouët. The baptismal font and the furniture of the sacristy are also worthy of interest. Relics of Saint-Constance, given to the church of Yèvres in 1678 by Lord Cyprien Besnard de Rezey, Advisor to the King and Intendant of Finances, with the approval of Mgr Ferdinand de Neufville de Villeroy, Bishop of Chartres, whose portrait is prominently placed in the nave of the church. The visit ends with the "chapier", a piece of furniture with semi-circular drawers, which contains, "flat", an exceptional collection of priestly vestments and accessories. Recent work on the south porch has revealed exterior fonts and attractive moldings on the pillars.

The 12th century church of Saint Jean-Baptiste de Courtalain, already repaired in 1592, was rebuilt in 1809, increased by an aisle in 1838, then by a remarkable porch bell tower topped with a twelve meter spire. height, thanks to the generosity of the Montmorency family, owner of the castle. It is to Guillaume Davaugour and Perette de Baïf, his wife, that we attribute the erection of the Courtalain chapel into a parish church; The church is located in the immediate perimeter of the castle. The entire building is partly covered with flat tiles for the roof of the nave, the bell tower, the staircase turret; the three cut sides of the apse and the lower north side are covered in natural slate. Inside the nave is a Mutin Cavaillé Coll organ dating from 1936. It contains several interesting paintings.

The parish church of Saint-Pellerin, whose oriented plan is reduced to a simple rectangle, only retains a few vestiges of the Romanesque period: part of the southern wall, itself repaired several times. The building, which was struck by lightning, was restored in 1821 with the reconstruction of a beautiful molded frame with tie beams. On the north side a chapel opens onto the nave through two arcades which rest on cylindrical columns. The flat bedside is pierced by a large window with three lancets topped with flamboyant tracery. The western facade is dominated by a triangular gable whose slopes are decorated with kale and dogs sitting on piles of loads, the Renaissance style portal is decorated with a large shell surmounted by a sculpted base of a angel holding a shield. On the north and south sides, thick glaciated buttresses support the gutter walls. The Safeguarding of French Art granted aid of 25,000 F in 1993 to restore the flat tile roof and the slate bell tower.