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Blainville-sur-Mer sailors' chapel

Discover the sailors’ chapel at Blainville-sur-Mer

Blainville-sur-Mer is located near Coutances. It shares its harbor with the commune of Agon-Coutainville.

Here you can enjoy fine sandy beaches, dunes and top-quality oysters.

There’s also a pretty chapel, known as the “sailors’ chapel”, which we’d like to introduce to you today.

^11th century: construction of the chapel. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint Philbert (patron saint of sailors). It was a seigneurial chapel until the French Revolution.
^14th century: construction of the current building. It is said to have been built by Thomas and Guillaume de Brullie.
^19th century: restoration financed by the Marquis de Bellefonds, then owner of the manor house and chapel.
1975: creation of the “Amis de la chapelle des Marins” association.

Three ex-voto ships:
- A square-rigged three-master, the “Marie”: made by a sailor from a piece of mahogany wood. This model, which probably dates from the late 19th century (due to its rounded shape at the stern), was made at a time when large sailing ships were crossing the Atlantic.
- Another three-masted square-rigged ship: This one is a Terre-neuva or commercial vessel, as it has a long length (over 30 meters). It dates from the late 19th century.
- A two-masted ship, the “Notre-Dame de Granville”. This is a ship carved in its entirety from a single block of wood. The model represents a ship of the war fleet, identified by the flames on the masts.

Two paintings depicting maritime events:
- An 18th-century painting: sailors on their boat, caught in a stormy sea, pray to the Virgin Mary.
- The “Ex-Voto du Capitaine Perrette et de son équipage 20 décembre 1822”: This painting depicts a ship in a stormy sea. It symbolizes the adventures suffered by Captain Perrette Lamarche, who was shipwrecked in the Falkland Islands (in the South Atlantic, off the coast of South America) with his vessel on his return from a round-the-world expedition in 1817.

Sailors’ wives used to come here to pray in their absence
There were 180 masses a year in the chapel!
A market was held against the north wall. Traces of stalls can still be seen along the way.

Source text and illustrations : Pays d’art et d’histoire du Coutançais.

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