Attractions and Places To See around Cravans - Top 20

The church suffered little damage during the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of Religion. From the end of the 18th century, maintenance work was undertaken mainly inside the church. In 1822, the reconstruction of the bell tower framework began, followed in 1852 by the restoration of the west facade. A further restoration took place around 1860, and the sacristy was enlarged by the construction of a semicircular annex extending the Romanesque apse. Beginning in 1880, a roof repair campaign began, and a new belfry was installed in the bell tower. From 1890 to 1900, the cemetery surrounding the church was moved to the "Fief des Rentes," and the former burial site was transformed into a public square. Starting in 1926, the choir roof was replaced and the bell tower was made watertight. In 1971, the work program included the renovation of the exterior walls, the demolition of the false apse and the sacristy that concealed the apse of the south transept. In 1990, the main door was replaced with oak leaves, the stones were repointed, and the collapsed arch keystone was reinstalled. In the 2000s, the municipality repaired the mechanism of the two belfry bells, and the building was illuminated and maintenance work was carried out.

The Church of Our Lady of Corme-Écluse, the seat of a former Benedictine priory of the Abbey of the Ladies of Saintes, was donated around 1104 by Ramnulfus Focaudi (Bishop of Saintes between 1083 and 1106) to the Royal Abbey of Saint-Jean-d'Angély "so that he might always enjoy it and possess it in perpetuity." This abbey was thus responsible for the reconstruction of the sanctuary in the mid-12th century in the Romanesque style. A plaque affixed to the south wall of the nave contains a few historical snippets, still legible: 1200, the Benedictines completed the construction and adorned the church with an oak statue of the Blessed Virgin; 1327, the Abbot of Saint-Jean-d'Angely and an envoy of Pope John XXII prayed before the venerated image; In 1628, a pilgrimage was established to venerate the statue; In 1733, the statue was mutilated. The desecrator was punished. The church's plan is a slightly asymmetrical Latin cross (the north arm of the transept is longer than the south arm). The nave consists of two bays covered by pointed barrel vaults. It is lit by three symbolic windows rebuilt in the 13th century. A transverse arch separates the nave from the transept, whose crossing, under the bell tower, is covered by a cupola on squinches. The south arm of the transept opens onto an apse with a semi-dome vault. However, the north arm, rebuilt in the 17th century in the Romanesque style, is slightly longer than the south arm, and is designed on a rectangular plan without an apse. This arm has a portal with columns and toric rollers. After passing the triumphal arch, the choir begins with a straight bay covered with a semi-circular barrel vault and ends with a semi-circular vaulted arch.

Upon arriving in Corme-Écluse, it's only natural to stop at the church square, the heart of the Cormillon village. On this square, facing the town hall, stands the Church of Notre-Dame. Walk around it to admire the architectural details characteristic of the 12th-century Saintonge Romanesque style. The church was the seat of a former Benedictine priory of the Abbey of the Ladies of Saintes. The sculpted decoration of the Abbey of the Ladies certainly inspired that of the church of Corme-Écluse. This was often the case; mother abbeys were taken as examples by the priories that depended on them in terms of architecture and sculpture. In some cases, it is even assumed that the sponsors, artists, or craftsmen were the same people or at least from the same circle, sometimes descendants. Since the 13th century, the monument has been the destination of numerous pilgrimages that continue to this day. The pilgrimage takes place on the third Sunday of July in the convent gardens, followed by a procession to the Church of Our Lady.

Of the first church built in the 12th century, only the apse, the transept, the Gothic chapels and the bell tower remain, which is one of the best preserved and most elegant in Saintonge. It rises on three square floors supported by a powerful stump, and each face is decorated with a slender arcade with five arches supported by columns with capitals. The upper floor is pierced on each side by three elegant semi-circular twin bays. Of the church, entrusted to the Chaise-Dieu Abbey in 1084 by Robert de Pons, only the eastern part remains, the nave having disappeared during the Wars of Religion (16th century). Inside, note the dome divided into eight compartments as well as very beautiful capitals in the original sanctuary, decorated with acanthus leaves and palmettes. An ossuary crypt, from the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century, located under the chapel, extends the northern arm of the transept. It is accessible by a small staircase. It is covered with a primitive ribbed cross. A stone bench goes around the crypt about 50 centimeters from the current floor. Open on request at the town hall.

The Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens church: From the novel to the novel, there is only one step here and not only in the text! This church holds a special place in the Saintonge Romanesque landscape because it is built on the remains of a Gallo-Roman villa. The first bay of the choir, which carries the bell tower, reuses part of the walls of this villa and we can still observe fragments of a hypocaust, composed of an octagonal-shaped swimming pool. The church contains the oldest elements still visible in the religious buildings of Saintonge with masonry made of small regular rubble stones. Its classic plan has a two-bay nave and a pointed cradle vaulted transept. The choir bay is covered with a dome called “barlongue sur trompes”. The apse is decorated with an arcade which has beautiful sculpted capitals: a scene of the Holy Women at the Tomb; remains of archaic Romanesque sculpture which reveal lion tamers, a bow and falcon hunting scene. The front choir is a very old part of the building, dating from the 10th or 11th century, where magnificent Carolingian capitals decorated with fine arabesques remain. The church has two facades to the West and the South. Note the very curious series of modillions on the western facade, cubic in design.

This church, with few remains from the 12th century, was rebuilt in the 13th and 14th centuries, while the bell tower dates back to the 15th century. The façade was rebuilt around 1850. The nave, divided into five bays, was once covered with a vault and collapsed in 1756, destroying a chapel and a beautiful portal. This single nave features very elegant windows adorned with richly decorated capitals on the north façade. The flat-bottomed apse is pierced by a semicircular triplet whose small columns bear beautiful 12th-century capitals with ribbed palmette motifs. The east face of the bell tower bears traces of the former location of the nave roof, which is approximately 7 meters higher, as evidenced by the height of the northern buttresses. On the outside, on two capitals of the south wall, there is an illustration of the fable of the fox and the stork, an episode that can be found on the reused bas-relief decorating the facade of Saint-Symphorien de Crézac.

Originally dependent on the Augustan abbey of Mortagne-sur-Gironde, the church of Saint-Pierre de Cozes is now part of a group of bell towers: "Notre Dame de l'Estuaire". This building erected in the 12th century was greatly altered over the following centuries: collapses, fires, destructions, reconstructions and enlargements followed one another, juxtaposing styles.

This sanctuary undoubtedly had to suffer depredations during the various conflicts that bloodied Saintonge, as evidenced by the various reconstruction campaigns, which make the building a synthesis of Saintonge Romanesque and late Gothic styles. The watchtower and machicolations of the southern transept bear witness to the wars of religion, which were particularly violent in the region. A crypt built on an old underground refuge, perhaps of Celtic origin, was rediscovered in 1976. The complex architecture of the Saint-Martin church bears witness to numerous alterations over the centuries. The oldest parts of this former Casadean possession seem to date back to the 12th century, a period which saw the flowering of many Romanesque churches in the Saintonge countryside. The facade, high and slender, consists of two horizontal registers and is crowned with a sharp gable, which adds to its monumentality. The lower part consists of a single arched portal, with four bare arches (the keystones having been redone in 1895) supported by small columns with capitals decorated with interlacing, sculpted faces and birds drinking from the same chalice. , or on the contrary turning away from each other. The upper part is made up of a central bay with three arches, framed by two blind arcades, separated by a series of finely worked small columns mounted on a cornice and a fluted base and ending in candles. The transition between this floor and the gable is formed by a series of modillions representing animals whose names the sculptor transcribed into Latin on the edge of the tablets (Leopardus, Colube) as well as a curious character sticking out his tongue, illustration of the character willingly facetious of the "ymagiers" of the Middle Ages. The nave is made up of four bays, covered with a basket-handle vault. A series of columns with capitals devoid of any ornamentation once carried the beams supporting the primitive barrel vault, which has now disappeared. Ample broken barrel arcades punctuate its side elevations. Transept and choir have been considerably redesigned. If the structure of the transept and the primitive pre-choir are found again, with their Romanesque capitals and their barrel vaults, the whole has been "enveloped" by Gothic additions, forcing the masonry of this part of the building to be redone. church. In fact, the square of the transept has the particularity of being surrounded by dissimilar pillars, carrying roughly assembled arches. These transformations date from 1488, the year in which a report mentions the construction of "d'ung arseau soulz the tower of the bell tower of the said place". The vast Gothic sanctuary “doubles” the Romanesque parts. It is made up of a choir and two side chapels, all covered with ribbed vaults, which fall on culs-de-lampe representing enigmatic birds and human heads. Large ogival bays, where trilobes and quatrefoils mingle, flood this part of the building with light. A gilded wooden altarpiece, surrounded by two Louis XV style credenzas, take place in the choir and the adjacent chapels. The central motif is "The Lamb of the Apocalypse" caught in a radiant background. This set, restored by the Beaux-Arts in 1975, was designed for the Abbaye aux Dames de Saintes. The dome of the medieval extension of the crypt. The entrance to the crypt is at the foot of the high altar. The latter was rediscovered in 1976 by the priest at the time, D.Héraud. Entirely carved into the rock, it seems to have been built in the 5th century, perhaps on an underground refuge of Celtic origin. Enlarged in the 12th century, it served for a long time as an ossuary. Outside, the square bell tower rises at the crossroads of the transept, where a dome on pendentives has been fitted. Built in the 14th century, it is flanked by a "pine cone" staircase turret. Traces of fortifications (watchtower and battlements), but also of fire, testify to the fights of the wars of religion in the 16th century. Church open daily.