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Sunday 17thAugust 2008
La Vieille Lyre to Chateau d'Yville
We had agreed to meet up with Laurent again the next day at about 11. He has his own web site with lots of information about the surrounding area - link to http://vieille-lyre-neuve-lyre.over-blog.com. Firstly we visited the town of Breteuil and then 
went on to the town of Conche before meeting Laurent outside the church in Lyre. The church is quite unusual as the main nave slopes up towards the altar. Apparently this is similar to the church at Cormeilles where the slope is much greater. Laurent talked about one of the stained glass windows depicting Joseph and Mary and Jesus. They are shown with tools of trade of the local crafts in the area of Lyre – those of carpentry, nail and hammer production and weaving. In the centre of the altar area is a magnificent 
effigy of Adelise daughter of Count Roger de Tosny who married William d’Osbern of Crepon founder of the Abbey of Lyre in about 1045. This effigy was only discovered in 1925 when renovations revealed that the stone carrying the effigy was face down at the head of the nave being used as a step. 
My own attempts to take a photo of this effigy nearly resulted in disaster as the benches I was standing on were highly unstable. Malcolm and Tony came to my rescue!
We retired to the inn for a final drink before we left. We had brought gifts of our local brew from Market Bosworth and a book about Hinckley which we gave to Laurent. More whispering and we were presented with the bottle of “Perrier” Water! It was time to make tracks northwards where we were to stay overnight with Malcolm’s friends Albert and Anick Néel in the grounds of the Chateau d’Yville north of Bourg Achard. On the way we stopped off to visit the Priory at Beaumont-le-Roger called the Prieuré de la Sainte Trinité.
Albert is the gardener at the Chateau d’Yville and he is a worldwide authority on Holly. He has a vast collection. Albert and his wife made us most welcome and gave us a tour around the chateau grounds which included a very large Pidgeon house which in its day housed over 2000 birds. We had a lovely meal there in the evening and retired to find that one of us had to climb a ladder to the bed in the loft. Guess who that was!