Piennes.
The church of Piennes (Hist. Mon.) dating from the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century, was a remarkable structure.
The tierce-point doorway comprised two round-arched bays, with a blind Flamboyant tympanum. The dividing pillar was surmounted by a statue of the Virgin resting on a crescent.
Assainvillers Church.
Between the doorway and the buttresses framing it, an elaborate Gothic canopy sheltered an empty niche on either side. The front of each buttress was ornamented with a niche under a Gothic canopy containing mutilated statues of St. Catherine and St. Marguerite.
Piennes Church.
The side-aisles were very picturesque with their live gables and five separate roofs at right-angles to that of the great nave.
The vaulting is said to have been designed by Jean Vaast, one of the architects of Beauvais Cathedral. The pretty 16th century font was ornamented with angels' heads and fantastic figures arranged alternately and linked together by festoons of leaves. The remarkable churchwardens' bench of carved wood in Renaissance style was one of the finest in the Département of the Somme. The wood-work of the pulpit dated from the same period and was in the same style.
The church was almost entirely destroyed in 1918, but a portion of the doorway and a buttress with a niche still remain. The gables of the side-aisles, three of which have retained their roofing, are still standing. The font near the entrance, on the left, is partly hidden under the débris. The pulpit was destroyed by the falling tower and vaulting.
Leave Piennes and pass through the hamlet of Le Lundi. Trenches may be seen alongside the railway. Take the Montdidier-Compiègne road on the left to Rollot, where Antoine Gallant, the Oriental writer and translator of the French version of "The Arabian Nights", was born in 1646. Of the monument erected to his memory in the village, only the pedestal remains.
Rollot.—Rue de l'Église.
The road from Rollot to Boulogne-la-Grasse.
On leaving Rollot, take G.C. 27 on the left; the Chateau of Bains, in the woods skirting the road on the left, was greatly damaged during the fighting. Keep straight on to the church of Boulogne-la-Grasse.
Chateau of Bains.