Rouen and Dieppe: French Property Location Guide

Sarah Daly explores Rouen, Normandy’s capital city, along with the pretty port town of Dieppe

The only time I’d previously visited Rouen, I was 19 and coming to the end of a month-long Interrailing trip around Europe with a school friend. We were tired and it rained, but we were Monet fans, so we visited the spectacular Gothic cathedral immortalised in his work. Once we had ticked it off our list, we staggered back to the dry comfort of our B&B, before heading to Dieppe to take the ferry home.

It’s fair to say that Rouen’s most famous 19-year-old visitor had a very different stay in the city. On my recent visit, I learned that Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake here in 1431 at a site that can still be visited today in La Place du Vieux-Marché. Her crimes included wearing men’s clothes and claiming she answered only to God and not to the church.

In fact, she led the French army to victory over the English many times during the Hundred Years’ War. Her fascinating life and legacy are explored at the Historial Jeanne d’Arc and you can still visit the Donjon (Tour de la Pucelle) where she was held captive.

Dieppe, too, merited a lot more attention than we gave it (largely because we got on the wrong train and nearly missed our ferry home). It’s a really appealing town with a pretty seafront and a history entwined with England’s.

William the Conqueror created ports here and along the Alabaster Coast, in order to continue trading with his home territory in the Duchy of Normandy. A century later, Henry II, and his son Richard the Lionheart, built Dieppe’s imposing castle high on a promontory overlooking the sea. It’s now a fascinating museum full of art, incredible ivory sculptures and one of the oldest world maps in existence.

A less comfortable moment of Anglo-French relations occurred in 1694, when the town was almost completely destroyed by a British and Dutch feet launching incendiary bombs from the sea. Undaunted, Louis XIV ordered the town to be rebuilt and it retains much of that early 18th-century charm.

MEDIEVAL MAJESTY

We took a guided tour of the old town of Rouen, which has one of the highest densities of listed buildings in France– not surprising, as it was a Gallo-Roman settlement over 2,000 years ago. Despite the efforts of enemies, from the Vikings to the Nazis, to destroy the city, it’s clearly flourishing. If culture is your thing, many museums in Rouen are free to visit and as well as famous Monet paintings, the Musée des Beaux-Arts displays works by Renoir, Caravaggio, Velázquez and Modigliani.

Unique in France, the Aître St-Maclou, now a peaceful courtyard filled with trees and benches, was originally a plague pit. The charming timber-framed medieval buildings that encircle the space, housing a café and craft workshops, were then filled with bones from Black Death victims exhumed so that later plague victims could be buried. Up to 45% of the population is thought to have perished, making this lovely place one of the oddest makeovers of a seriously macabre past that I’ve ever visited.

The Gros-Horloge is even older in date. This astronomical clock tower straddles medieval streets in the old town. It’s distinctly eerie to think that these, and many of Rouen’s buildings would have existed in Joan of Arc’s time.

AGENT’S PERSPECTIVE

Guillaume Herbert is an estate agent in Rouen. He tells me that a lot of people live in Rouen and work in Paris, which is roughly an hour and 30 minutes’ journey by train or car. “The market has stabilised after the sharp rises following Covid,” he explains. “You can expect to pay around €2,500-€3,000/m2 for properties on the right bank of the Seine. If you want to be in the historic centre, however, prices can be as high as €4,500/m2 for the most sought-after properties. It’s always a good idea to buy a place in an area with stable values,” Guillaume advises. “You’ll pay more, but it should hold its value for resale.

“Historic properties with charm are often the most appealing to English-speakers, particularly our iconic timber-framed homes. Haussman-type flats with a lift and parking are also popular with this market as are the traditionally middle-class areas near the station and St-André-de-Mont-St-Aignan. They often offer opulent accommodation, with gardens, close to the city centre and to good schools. On the left bank, the area around the Jardin des Plantes is also popular.

“Beyond the city limits you will usually get larger plots for your money. To the north, the villages of Bois-Guillaume, Mont-St-Aignan and Bihorel have good local services and are well-served by public transport. They feature architect-designed modern properties as well as beautiful older homes. Le Mesnil-Esnard, Franqueville-St-Pierre and Bonsecours to the east are slightly cheaper but offer a good quality of life for families.”

MOVING BY THE BOOK

Jersey-born Paul Billington runs ABC Bookshop (abcbookshop.fr) in the heart of Rouen, specialising in English-language books. He and his Lebanese wife are French citizens and live with their two children in a modern flat they’ve recently purchased on Rouen’s left bank close to the centre. “I moved to France many years ago to teach English, and Rouen happened to be the first place I found work, but I love the city and never left,” says Paul. “I used to visit this bookshop and got friendly with the British owner. When she wanted to sell up, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take it on. Most of my customers are French, and I still teach English here to adults and children.

“The shop also acts as a meeting point for English-speakers in the city. When I first moved here, I house-shared and it’s a great way to meet people if you’re moving on your own. It took me a long time to get to the point of buying a property, but that means I understood the city well before I did so. I love it: it’s big enough to have plenty going on, but small enough to retain that small town feeling and to get to know people.”

GLOBAL CONNECTIONS

Dieppe has always been a town that faces the sea. It has around 30,000 inhabitants and is divided into six different neighbourhoods, each wit its own unique feel. It has a protected deep port, a marina and an innovative dry dock that can store nearly 300 motorboats. An exciting local project is also using waste scallop shells to create calcium for pharmaceutical use. A huge working swing bridge has just been restored and provides access to Le Pollet, traditionally where Dieppe’s fishing community lived.

This is a small town with global connections. Historically it traded with South America, Africa and Asia, and a project is underway to introduce electrically powered flights between Shoreham and Dieppe.

“I love the market, the proximity to the UK and the tranquillity of our village,” says Glenn Dudley, who has lived in Arques-la-Bataille since 2004, with his Dieppoise wife Claire and son Nino. “The region is green and beautiful in spring and autumn with rich colours from the rolling hills and valleys. The adjacent seaside resorts of Pourville, Fécamp and Le Tréport, as well as Dieppe, offer leisure activities and fine-dining opportunities throughout the year, and trains to Paris and its airports are frequent and travelling easy.

“To anyone considering the move, I would say rent for a year to get to know the region before buying. It’s also essential to have a stable financial situation to cope with immersion into the local community. It’s not easy to find work unless you’re fluent in French with a transferable profession. There’s so much choice, space and quality of life on offer in France though, and I’ve always found French people to be welcoming and engaging, but for me it is the gastronomy and quality of life that win every time.”

FOOD AND LODGINGS

One of the joys of France is definitely the food, and Seine-Maritime is no exception. Rouen is France’s only Unesco City of Gastronomy, part of its Creative Cities Network, and Dieppe and Rouen have some exceptional restaurants. The excellent O2 Mer in Dieppe, with views of the beach, has a creative take on seafood, while on the harbour Le Jehan Ango offers traditional, hearty dishes. La Couronne in Rouen is an atmospheric restaurant with imaginative food overlooking Place du Vieux-Marché, while Bistrot de la Pucelle offers fresh and seasonal dishes, and in Gill Coté Bistro, I had an excellent beef dish with an onion confit.

If you’re looking for a base for your property search, in Rouen, the Novotel near the cathedral is ideal for exploring both sides of the river, while the sea views from the Hotel Aguado in Dieppe are hard to beat. And the seafood market in Dieppe or the central market in Rouen, where I was introduced to the unctuous heart-shaped Neufchâtel cheese, provide plenty of opportunities to buy exceptional local produce in fascinating surroundings.

It was definitely worth taking the time to revisit this historic part of Normandy. Its coastline is beautiful and Dieppe is a lesser known jewel in its crown. And understanding just how merciless both the English and French authorities were to the young Joan of Arc doesn’t dim the appeal of the city that, in so many places, would have been familiar to her. Today her legend is rightly celebrated in this creative, vibrant and welcoming city.

Lead photo credit : La Place du Vieux-Marché in Rouen’s historic centre