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All France Châteaudun Cimetière du Champdé

Cimetière du Champdé

The remains of this ornate chapel now act as a portal to a cramped French cemetery.

Châteaudun, France

Added By
Daniel R. Thorne
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Cimetière du Champdé   Daniel R. Thorne
Cimetière du Champdé   Daniel R. Thorne
Cimetière du Champdé   Daniel R. Thorne
Cimetière du Champdé   Daniel R. Thorne
Cimetière du Champdé   danielrthorne / Atlas Obscura User
Cimetière du Champdé   danielrthorne / Atlas Obscura User
Cimetière du Champdé   danielrthorne / Atlas Obscura User
Cimetière du Champdé   danielrthorne / Atlas Obscura User
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About

The ghostly ruins of the 16th-century Notre-Dame-du-Champdé church stand watch over the entrance to the 19th-century Cimetière du Champdé where thousands of bodies are buried in overfull graves.

A large, crumbling stone facade and a single tower are all that remain of the Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Champdé, which stood on the site from 1519 until its destruction by fire in 1878. The ghostly portal, home and perch to a small murder of crows, stands watch over the final resting place of thousands, including several dozen veterans of the First and Second World Wars, at the Cimetière du Champdé in Châteaudun. The ornate facade could itself be seen as a headstone for the departed church it once belonged to.

Typical of those elsewhere in the country, the cemetery is crowded, with hundreds upon hundreds of crosses, headstones, and other markers spanning out in every direction. Many graves and mausoleums are family plots which contain the remains of four, five, or often seven or eight people.

If ruins can be seen as the graves of buildings, we should all be so lucky as to be remembered with such a lovely memorial as that which acts as the gate to Cimetière du Champdé.

Related Tags

Ruins Churches Cemeteries Sacred Spaces

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Added By

danielrthorne

Edited By

EricGrundhauser

  • EricGrundhauser

Published

March 19, 2015

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  • http://www.ville-chateaudun.fr/Accueil/Votre-ville/Plan-de-la-ville/Cimetiere-du-Champde/(language)/fre-FR
  • http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapelle_Notre-Dame-du-Champd%C3%A9
Cimetière du Champdé
Rue du Champde
Châteaudun, 28200
France
48.067552, 1.335126
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