The church, dedicated to the Assumption of Our Lady (feast day on 15 August), is a vast edifice built of Balesmes stone in three phases: the end of the 12th century for the choir and the forechoir surmounted by the bell tower (contemporary with Langres cathedral, with which they offer some kinship), the 13th century for the first two bays of the nave, and the end of the 15th century for the last bay with its reworked west portal, a blocked side gate and the external spiral staircase. Balesmes church has had French MH classification since 9 July 1909.
The nave is cross-vaulted with large round arches and wide double arches that fall on hammered hooked capitals set on lamp bases. It is lit from the south by small, narrow windows with wide splayed windows. With its long single nave (lengthened at the end of the 15th century), its forechoir topped by a squat "Langrois" bell tower and its choir with flat chevet, the church of Balesmes, standing proudly on a spur overlooking the Marne, is typical of 12th-13th century rural churches in the Langrois region, bearing witness to the wealth of the bishops of Langres at that time.
In addition to 19th-century wall paintings, the church at Balesmes has some interesting furnishings: a high altar with a wooden baldachin altarpiece from an early 18th-century Langrois workshop; the tombstone of Prudent Arnoult, priest, prior and parish priest of Balesmes, who died in 1574, and two 17th-century funerary slabs. Lastly, there is a curious 1500 dedication of the altar of St Joseph, engraved on the frame of a pool on the right in the nave.
The parish of Balesmes, once the seat of a priory-cure administered by the prior of Saint-Geosmes, was served by secular priests after 1731.
Another curiosity: the watershed of the Canal de la Marne à la Saône, built at the end of the 19th century (10.2 km long, including 4.82 km underground), passes exactly 40 m beneath the forecourt of Balesmes church.
Eglise Notre-Dame-en-son-Assomption de Balesmes-sur-Marne
