Berneval-le-Grand

Geography

History

Heraldry

Population

Places of interest

• The church of Notre-Dame, rebuilt, as was most of the village, after the Second World War. The original church, dating back to the 13th century, was destroyed on 3 June 1944 by Allied bombers.

  Notable people linked to the commune

• After his release from Reading Prison, Oscar Wilde stayed in Berneval in June 1897. He was accompanied by his friend and future literary executor, the Canadian journalist, art critic and art dealer Robert Ross. Most of his former friends abandoned him, but André Gide came to meet him at the Hôtel de la Plage. He found Wilde a broken man, still a prisoner in his soul despite his freedom. In Berneval, Wilde wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
• Edward Vincent Loustalot, regarded as the first American soldier killed by the Germans in the Second World War, died here on 19 August 1942.
• During the 1970s, a large part of Walerian Borowczyk's film, Les Contes immoraux, was made in Berneval in the Grand Hôtel, Avenue du Capitaine-Porthéous.
• Auguste Renoir, Pissarro and Hippolyte Camille Delpy, among others, painted landscapes in Berneval-le-Grand.