Saint-Léger Church, Lens
The present church is a reconstruction of the former church destroyed in 1918. The only remnant of the pre-1918 church is the statue of the Virgin Mary found in the rubble of the post-World War I ruins. On 9 June 1923, the reconstruction project was accepted and signed by the mayor of Lens. Looking very much like the previous one, its location was moved back several metres as part of the widening of the Place Jean Jaurès. Faced with the risks generated by the mine galleries passing under the city, the structure is no longer made of stone but of reinforced concrete and the walls are thus less thick. The pulpit was inaugurated in 1928 and the large organs were completed in April 1930.
About this building
Rebuilt in a style very close to the church destroyed during the war, the structure of the present church is no longer made of stone but of reinforced concrete. It consists of a nave and aisles of five bays with flying buttress, a hemicircular apse and a bell tower adjoining the front of the façade. The narthex is pierced by a main portal and two side entrances. The choir, vaulted like a cul de four, is illuminated by three stained glass windows, the central one depicting Saint Léger. The tiling of the nave depicts Jerusalem crosses. The nave and aisles are barrel vaulted and separated by columns supporting semicircular arches.
