Route du vitrail

The village of Droyes, home to the church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, is the starting point for your tour of the stained glass route in Haute-Marne.

Along its 72 km, the route will reveal the charm of the architecture of the villages and their churches, alternating between stone sanctuaries illuminated by the remarkable stained-glass windows of the master stained-glass artists of Troyes and timber-framed buildings.

Most of the stained glass windows date from the 16th century (with the exception of those in Montier-en-Der): their iconography and technique are the work of workshops in Troyes. It is true that they adorn churches that were once part of the Troyes diocese.

The main groups of ancient stained glass windows in the Haute-Marne are to be found in the Saint-Dizier district, particularly in the Der region.

Churches on the Stained Glass Route in Haute-Marne: Droyes, Puellemontier, Longeville-sur-la-Laine, Louze, Trémilly, Nully, Ceffonds, Doulevant-le-Château, Sommevoire, Robert-Magny, Montier-en-Der, Ceffonds. Joinville, further away from the loop, is well worth a return trip to discover the town's heritage and the Château du Grand-Jardin... (additional 39km round trip from Dommartin-le-Saint-Père).

Most of them date from the 16th century: their style, iconography and technique are the work of workshops in Troyes, and it is true that they adorn churches that were once part of the Troyes diocese.

The visitor will particularly notice the representation of scenes in registers, characteristic of the 16th-century Trojan school and preferred to large compositions occupying the entire surface of the stained glass window, and the technique of engraved glass, most often used on red or blue glass, to reveal the white film that doubled these colours and thus obtain motifs juxtaposing two colours without additional lead (e.g. a red nimbus punctuated by white pearls).

As all the churches face east, the instructions refer to the cardinal points. North corresponds to the visitor's left and south to the visitor's right when looking at the choir.

Visitors can also head for Poinson-lès-Nogent, between Chaumont and Langres. Its neo-Gothic church features a homogeneous group of stained glass windows installed between 1914 and 1930, depicting figures in the aisles and the themes of the Crucifixion and Annunciation in the choir.