Things to see in Évreux

Évreux is the administrative and cultural centre of the Eure department. Its principal landmarks trace the city from the Gallo-Roman period through the Middle Ages and into the early modern era. The green route on the heights and the landscaped banks of the Iton add quieter walking spaces to this architectural history.

Cathedral and former bishop’s palace

Notre-Dame Cathedral has been altered several times, and its oldest surviving section dates from the 10th century. The interior includes a group of 14th-century stained-glass windows, substantial woodwork and a carved wooden screen.

A cloister links the cathedral to the former bishop’s palace. Built in the 15th century, the palace has a main range with pediments and dormer windows, together with a stair turret. It houses the Musée d’Art, d’Histoire et d’Archéologie. During work on a new wing in 1985, a section of Gallo-Roman defensive wall was uncovered below ground. The museum’s archaeological collection spans the period from prehistory to the Merovingian era.

Religious and civic landmarks

Saint-Taurin Church is dedicated to the city’s first bishop. Dating from the 12th century and remodelled more than once, it contains stained glass narrating the saint’s life and a 13th-century shrine made from gilded silver and enamel.

The Tour de l’Horloge was erected between 1490 and 1497 on the site of a tower that had guarded the city’s principal gate. It served both as a watchtower and a clock tower. Rising to forty-four metres, it carries a Flamboyant Gothic spire and retains a stair turret, the last surviving element of the city’s fortifications.

Place Charles-de-Gaulle was laid out in 1895 on the site of the former Château d’Évreux. Its fountain, by the sculptor Émile Décorchemont, represents the Eure as a woman holding an oar. Children around the figure personify the Iton and the Rouloir. From the square, the Robert-de-Floques path leads towards Gallo-Roman ramparts dating from the 3rd to the 5th centuries.

The Capuchin convent and Gisacum

The Capuchin convent was built in 1620. After the French Revolution it successively served as a prison, central school, municipal school, secondary school and college, and it became a military hospital during the First World War. Four galleries form its cloister, decorated with maxims by the 13th-century Italian friar Jacopone da Todi. The inner garden contains a central well, while a sundial ornaments the south door.

At the archaeological site of Gisacum, excavations revealed Gallo-Roman baths and remains from a substantial settlement that occupied the site around two thousand years ago. The surviving evidence introduces the sequence and social role of Roman bathing, as well as the lives of the settlement’s inhabitants.