Asnelles

Asnelles (anɛl) is a commune in the Calvados department in the Normandy region of north-western France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as Asnellois or Asnelloises. Asnelles is located at the seaside some 13 km north-east of Bayeux and 10 west of Courseulles-sur-Mer. Access to the commune is by the D514 road from Saint-Côme-de-Fresné in the west passing through the town and continuing to Ver-sur-Mer in the east. The D65 road from Arromanches to Meuvaines passes through the south of the commune. The D65A links the D514 to the D65. A large part of the commune is residential with the sea shore fully urban but some 50% of the commune is farmland. The Gronde river passes through the heart of the commune from south to north emptying into the English Channel. Tradition says that William the Conqueror, to escape his pursuers and after having taken refuge at the house of Baron Hubert de Ryes, regained his ducal castle by following small sunken pathways including one that now bears the name of Sente au Bâtard (Sente the Bastard). This footpath is difficult in places and it crosses the Gronde, bypassing part of the village, and leads to old farmhouses and old stone houses at Creully. The name Asnelles (from the Latin asinellas meaning "little donkeys") appears for the first time in an official document at the end of the 12th century when work began on the early church dedicated to St. Martin. At that time a market for donkeys stood in the field opposite the church near the public square "planître". The coastline was then a large swamp which often caused fevers: people would implore the protection of Saint Honorine in a small chapel built on the ruins of a Gallo-Roman Villa which would be located near the modern cemetery. Until the end of the 17th century there was a small harbour at the mouth of the Gronde called Port Heurtault which had nearly 2,000 boat movements per year of boats involved in coastal shipping or Cabotage. The port was silted up by a storm, so that the Amirauté Court or Maritime Court, which was created in 1554 at Asnelles, was transferred to Bayeux.