Last modified: 2025-04-05 by olivier touzeau
Keywords: perray-en-yvelines (le) | yvelines |
Links: FOTW homepage |
search |
disclaimer and copyright |
write us |
mirrors
![[Flag]](../images/f/fr-78-py.gif)
Flag of Le Perray-en-Yvelines - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 19 January 2025
See also:
Le Perray-en-Yvelines (6,515 inhabitants in 2021; 1,347 ha) is a commune in the Yvelines department, near Rambouillet.
During the reign of Louis IX, a new village was born from the stone road between Paris and Chartres: "villa nova de Pereio in Aquilina". On November 7, 1242, Aubry Lecornu, bishop of Chartres, consecrated the parish under the name of Saint-Eloi. This village-street will develop along this road, the road to Bayonne, whose development first dates from the pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela. Francis I used it to reach his castle of Rambouillet. The creation of the post houses by Henry III saw the installation of the first wheelwrights and blacksmiths in Perray. Louis XIV took it to go and marry Maria Theresa of Austria in June 1660. To supply water to the Palace of Versailles, in 1685 Louis XIV had a ten-hectare pond dug in Le Perray (L'Etang du Perray) fed by a system of channels and the chain of ponds (Saint-Hubert, Pourras, Corbet, Bourgneuf, Hollande) on the route of the Peissonnier stream. This made it possible to drain the rather marshy territory of the commune, to obtain good agricultural land, to create large farms and therefore to develop the village, thanks to the agricultural hamlets.
In the 18th century, the road contributed to developing local activity: inns, hostelries, wheelwrights, farriers, carters, carters. Imperial Route No. 11 became Royal Route No. 11, then No. 10, and, as the Republic required, National Route 10. In 1849, the line from Paris-Montparnasse to Brest passed through Le Perray: the Perray pond was cut in two and it was not until 1862 that the Perray station was created, facilitating the transport of local goods (cereals, wood and millstone) which became an essential activity at the beginning of the 20th century. In the 20th century, nearly 15 hotels, restaurants, cafés and refreshment stands lined the four kilometres of its crossing, and nearly ten petrol stations were built. But the road became dangerous: many accidents, many deaths, especially after 1950. In 1976, the diversion of the RN 10 changed the life and destiny of Le Perray, which became a residential area near Rambouillet forest.
Olivier Touzeau, 19 January 2025
The coat of arms is blazoned:
Tierced pallwise 1. Gules a stag's head caboshed Or 2. Or a hammer
Sable handled Gules palwise debruised by an anvil Sable 3. Argent a
bundle of three arrows Sable debruised by a bow Gules fesswise
The flag is blue with the coat of arms: photo (2018).
Olivier Touzeau, 19 January 2025