House of the Templars (Maison des Templiers)

In 1918, an American buyer attempted to purchase the Maison des Templiers to dismantle it stone-by-stone and transport it across the Atlantic to the United States. The building was saved at the last minute when a local heritage association, 'Les Amis du Vieux Caudebec', purchased it for preservation - a dramatic rescue that preserved this medieval treasure for future generations.

During the 1940 bombardment of World War II that devastated most of Caudebec-en-Caux, the Maison des Templiers miraculously survived but suffered a terrible fire. Only the stone facade and interior columns remained standing, a testament to its robust 13th-century construction. The building was painstakingly restored between 1946-1954 by dedicated volunteers who also reconstituted the museum collections from scratch.

The museum once housed fascinating exhibits about René Guilbaud's tragic 1928 polar rescue mission. Guilbaud, a local hero from Caudebec, piloted the Latham 47 seaplane (built in nearby Caudebec-en-Caux) to rescue the Italia airship crew stranded in the Arctic. The legendary explorer Roald Amundsen joined the mission in Norway, but the plane vanished over the Barents Sea on June 18, 1928 - all six crew members, including Amundsen, were never found.