Date

Circa 1910

Views of Medieval housing, (domestic architecture), in Lisieux, photographed ca. 1890-1910. The street view with laundry hanging from upper windows strongly resembles a sketch (1813) made of Lisieux by Henry Edridge (1768-1821), in the Harvard Art Museum. Before the war, Lisieux had some truly remarkable Medieval buildings. Many of these were in the Rue aux Fèves, which was almost untouched since the Middle Ages. Some of the houses were half-timbered. Lisieux was bombed during World War II and two thirds of the town was destroyed. The one exception is the Manor of the Salamander (14th century), which was dismantled by the Fécamp architect Émile Mauge and reconstructed in Etretat in 1912, preserving its rich carvings. It is a restaurant today.