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The history of the present-day church in Rocquigny began in the aftermath of the First World War. Bombed during the Battle of the Hindenburg Line, the village was nothing but ruins by 1917. It was one of the villages hit by the war that had to rebuild. To this end, the commune joined the “Société coopérative de reconstruction des églises du diocèse d'Arras” (Cooperative Society for the Reconstruction of Churches in the Diocese of Arras) and called in a local architect, Jean-Louis Sourdeau (1889-1976). In 1928, Sourdeau proposed a design whose centred plan and dynamic diagonal entrance surprised the director of the cooperative. The latter sought the advice of architect Louis-Marie Cordonnier (chairman of the technical committee), who approved the project as a whole, which drew inspiration from Romanesque and pre-Romanesque models while revitalising the architecture. To achieve this, Jean-Louis Sourdeau planned to use a combination of brick and rough reinforced concrete.

Work began in February 1929, and the structural work was carried out by Broucke et Fils, a company based in Hénin-Liétard. In November 1932, the exterior of the church was completed, its distinctive feature being an openwork concrete bell tower positioned on a diagonal of the nave, at the foot of which is the main entrance to the building. Subsequently, the interior of the building was furnished and decorated by a number of companies, including Gaudin et Compagnie for the roses in the nave and Mauméjean Frères for the mosaics on the liturgical furniture (pulpit).

However, this reconstruction, which was completed rather quickly, did not age well. In 1993, the town council decided to close the building for safety reasons and began a battle to save it. Years later, after official protection as a Historic Monument in 2001, interior renovation work and a complete reconstruction of the bell tower in 2012, the building once again stands in the centre of the village, even prouder of its modernity!

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