DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH

The Saint-Quentin church is a village church. Raised in height, surrounded by the cemetery, it has been much altered.

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Built in the 12th century, it was then smaller: the current choir and the bell tower did not exist. Pieces of walls at the bottom of the bell tower and the basin of the baptismal font still testify to this. At the beginning of the 16th century, it was transformed and new furniture was installed. The bell tower is modified several times.

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The Revolution of 1789 and its ideals caused many degradations in Wirwignes as in all of Boulonnais.

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Many works were undertaken by the ministers and the municipalities after the revolutionary period, but it was Abbé Paul-Amédée Lecoutre who gave the church its current appearance and interior decoration.

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From 1863, date of his appointment until his death in 1906, he devoted his time and his mind to the church: marble paving of the floors and walls, enlargement by the construction of eight chapels, altars of new chapels, creation and installation of stained glass windows, raising of the nave to the height of the choir and the bell tower, new framework, sculpture of the pulpit, of the confessional, sculpture of the letters in cul-de-lampe of the chapels, of the capitals of the columns, sculpture of the statues of the nave and choir, the labyrinth of the Chapel of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, sculpture of the Stations of the Cross in bas-relief, sculpture of the exterior statues of the gables of the chapels, painting of the ceilings, modification and raising of the bell tower.

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In 1906, Abbé Lecoutre devoted himself to painting the triumphal arch: he fell from the scaffolding, leaving the current sentence unfinished.

If he called on professionals for this colossal work, Abbé Lecoutre became a tailor and sculptor of stone and wood and is the author of most of the objects classified as Historic Monuments in 1982.   ;

He gave the church a naive decor, full of imagination, rare in religious buildings and which contrasts with its wise exterior appearance.