This village is nestled in the Soissons a valley leading into the UK from Vandy, a small tributary of right bank of the Aisne. It retains many gabled houses scalar, typical of the region, in particular, the former home of Hearing (1689) recently restored. The framing of the windows slightly boss and harp, and a cornice decorated with triglyphs current at the base of the roof, emphasize the quality of construction. A tower, topped by a dome of stone, flanked to the southeast of the building.
A few meters away stands the church of Saint-Etienne, which has retained its five-sided chancel of the 12th century, but the nave and the bell tower located in the west have been redone in the 16th century. This is crowned by a beautiful octagonal spire of stone. The interior of the bell tower (floors blind) and the cemetery wall with its windows and shooting at an angle, pull-outs of an old tower, are good examples of village fortifications from the 16th and 17th centuries. One enters the building through a portal located south of the tower, dated 1514. The nave very spacious, with large arches supported by cylindrical columns, was vaulted in the 16th century. It is lit only by glowing windows of the aisles. Notable among the furniture, the three altarpieces of the 17th and 18th centuries. The high altar is decorated with a large painting of St. Dominic and St. Catherine receiving the rosary of the Virgin. The baptismal font, made of wood, dating from the 18th century.
Hautefontaine was once a royal property and probably a dependency of the old house of Guise. Louis eighth gave the manor in 1224 to Robert III, Count of Dreux and Braine, nicknamed Gatebled with that of Bonneuil-en-Valois, in exchange for an annuity of fifty bushels of wheat, they will stay in the house of Dreux . She was owned by Louis the 14th house Brion, to which the king had granted the exclusive right to make check marks on the rivers Oise and Aisne. The Marquis de Brion sold February 23, 1764, with six hundred seventy-five thousand pounds, to Charles Edward Rothe, Lieutenant General, which included the lordship of the lands of Montigny-Landgren, Banru, Taunnières, Saint-Crépin, Courtieux, Jaulzy, Martimont, Clamecy, Croutoy, Mortefontaine, and the stronghold of Warsy to Chelle. The old castle was rebuilt in the last years before 1789 by the Countess of Dillon, niece of the Archbishop of Narbonne. The cure, dedicated to St. Firmin, was, like many others, in the patronage of the cathedral chapter.
The town received the Croix de Guerre 1914-1918.
