Church of Saint-Etienne-du-Port

Originally, the parish was made up of workers, market gardeners and gardeners who were given the name "Portuguese" in reference to the Port district where they lived. The church, the 1st in France to be free from State control, was built at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century by Alcide Boutaud, an architect from Poitiers, who designed a beautiful, large and inexpensive building (cheap materials and no exterior ornamentation). Lacking money, initiatives were undertaken (rummage sales, concerts, festivals, etc.). In the "pure ogival style of the 13th century", it is a pastiche of 3 influences: Romanesque (chapels), Gothic (nave) and Mozarabic (triforium - interior gallery and ciborium - baldachin with columns). Its spire, which was supposed to be 80 m high, was never built because the ground was too soft. Why does it bear the patronage of Saint Stephen? In memory of the former priory of the same name founded here in the 12th century.