Attractions and Places To See around Chamouillac - Top 20

Of the first, very well placed at the top of a high mound, there are hardly any more than vague sections of walls and of the second some carved stones incorporated, with the base and the shaft of an old cross, in the masonry of the current building. This one is almost entirely modern. The side chapels are from the last century and the Romanesque bell tower dates from 1890. It rises on two floors with semicircular bays, crowned with a stone spire, in front of the nave, its base forming a porch. The basket-handle capped nave and the chevet have no decoration. The stoup is from the 17th century. The church of Soubran houses a very beautiful painted canvas (1.90 x 1.30), from the 18th century representing a crucifixion, listed in the Mobilier Historique. The bell dated 1629 is also listed in the Mobilier Historique. From 1970, restoration work on the church of Soubran was undertaken in order to repair the numerous degradations due to time, on the one hand, but also to man. Many valuables had been stolen including ....... the altar, yes the altar!!! The mayor, Bernard Louis-Joseph, then went in search of an altar which he ended up finding in the town of Coulgens in Charente. But during the installation in the church of Soubran, minor cleaning work revealed a small box containing relics They were accompanied by a short text in Latin that Father Genet, Father Cooperator of the parishes of Mirambeau, Jonzac and Saint-Genis-de-Saintonge, former Latin teacher, was happy to translate. "The year of the Lord 1884 on the 24th of November, I, Alexandre, Léopold Sebaux, bishop of Angoulême, consecrated in honor of Saint John the Baptist* an altar in this place of our diocese commonly called Coulgens and I have inserted therein the relics of Saints Amant, Bonosius and Serena, martyrs». These relics have now returned to their original place in the altar.

The Abbey of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine goes down in history for having been founded by Geoffroi du Loroux, Archbishop of Bordeaux, around 1145-1150. The only vestige of the imposing Premonstratensian monastery, the church of the Abbey of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, founded in the 12th century, is the jewel of the village of Pleine-Selve. 12th century church, made up at the time of a single nave, a transept and a flat apse. In the 13th century, addition of chapels to the arms of the transept. The convent buildings were completely destroyed by French troops in 1407 during the Hundred Years War and then during the Wars of Religion. The church itself had its nave amputated. Of the 13th century building, the crossing, the north arm of the transept, the north chapel, the flat apse remain. During the 19th century, construction of a sacristy on the south facade of the chevet. The Romanesque church is only the choir of the old church, only the apse presents the architecture of the 12th century. Today it has the status of a parish church. The building was classified as a historical monument in 1908.

The church of Saint-Pierre depended in the 14th century on the abbey of La Couronne (Charente). Of Romanesque origin (12th and 13th centuries), it has suffered numerous damages and many restorations have taken place. The gable facade is pierced in its central axis by an early 16th century portal with a grooved arch, framed by prismatic tori and flanked by two blind bays. The whole is surmounted by a rose window. The side walls are perforated with narrow openings, some of which are underlined with a diamond-point cord. The 12th century building has a single nave with a trefoil choir. The semi-circular chevet is decorated with a chamfered cornice decorated with zigzags on brackets engraved with various subjects. Many engraved names accompanied by dates from the 18th century are visible on the bedside wall. The interior of the nave is covered with a semi-circular barrel vault. On the south side, a 16th century crypt is occupied by a tomb decorated in the flamboyant style. The two apsidioles vaulted in cul-de-four give the church a trefoil plan. The square of the transept supported the old bell tower. All that remains are back-to-back columns adorned with claw bases and worked grooves. The sculptures accompanying the pilasters are modern. The bell tower was redone in concrete with an external staircase in place of the previous one, which itself replaced the original bell tower, which fell in the 1950s. Under the modern, octagonal bell tower, there is a mass of columns with ornate capitals and bases (foliage, animals, colorful characters). The choir is barrel-vaulted with a semi-circular arch. The chancel columns are also adorned with claw bases on the north side and flutes on the south side. The cul-de-four apse is openworked with three similar windows with small columns. Paintings of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul. Tomb with recumbent in the habit of an ecclesiastic whose head and hands have been destroyed. The Saint-Pierre church was classified as a historical monument in 1970.

The small church of Soubran probably replaced the old chapel of a very close castle. Castle and chapel disappeared, destroyed, one and the other, at the time of the wars of Religion.

In the 15th century, this town was called Mirambel l'Artaud or Artault, a name borne by its lords from the 11th century to the 13th century. Froissart designates it under the name of Mirabel. An act of June 1645 designates this parish under the name of St Sébastien-les-Mirambeaux. This populous town, which had become the capital of the canton, presented the singular exception that, for the spiritual, it depended on Petit-Niort, whose church had become the parish center of the two localities. This state of affairs dates back to the beginning of the 17th century, when the church of St Martin was called upon to replace that of St Sebastian, which had just been completely destroyed; it has finally ceased in recent times. From the 11th century, Mirambeau had a church dedicated to St Sebastian, from Narbonne, martyred in Rome, under Diocletian, in the year 288 of the Christian era, as mentioned in the charter of the abbey of St Savinien, near Lyon, dated from the year 1062. In the 11th, 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, the priory of St-Sébastien de Mirambeau was still at the presentation of the abbot of St-Savinien de Lyon. One sees opposite the gate of the castle, while going up to the district called the City, a stone cross which indicates, one says, the site or was the church of St-Sebastien. In addition, there is between Civrac and the town, on the edge of the chemin d'Allas, the site of a chapel which formerly belonged to a commandery (this is still the name of the neighboring hamlet). - to be the so-called chapel of the Way, in the parish of St-Sébastien, according to the pouillé of 1746, and which was at the presentation of the diocesan bishop. Assisted by the generosity of the Countess Duchâtel, Mirambeau undertook the construction of a chapel, which was completed at the end of 1856. This building, too cramped, with modern forms, and without religious character, consists of a nave of 33 m long, 9 wide, with semi-circular apse and side chapels. They are dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and to the Sacred Heart. The chapel on the left was later rebuilt, with painting in the Byzantine style and ossuary, by the Duchâtel family, whose particular burial place it is. A basket-handle ceiling conceals an elegant framework in the nave. A porch of six steps leads to the main door of the chapel, which is surmounted by a slender quadrangular bell tower, and whose spire is covered with slates. This chapel occupies the very site of the former house of the Récollets de Mirambeau, We see in the church of Mirambeau, a crucifixion of Our Lady, a recent gift from the government, and an Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, a copy, it is said, of a painting by the famous Spanish painter Murillo. Plus a stone baptismal font, sculpted with art, and coming from the old chapel of the Récollets. While the title of canton cure was conferred on Mirambeau, Petit-Niort became a desserte, or third class cure, although this small population group does not even today have the title of commune.

Around a small church from the end of the 12th century, a larger construction was arranged in the 16th century and the curious facade (classified MH in 1911) presents today, under a single gable, a beautiful composition of Romanesque flowers and on the left, attached to it, an elegant Renaissance ensemble. On the north side, a simple bell tower of the original church at its base, rebuilt in the last century in its upper parts, balances the whole. It is square, without style, covered with a slate pyramid, and has retained a few loophole openings. 3 of its arched windows each house a bell. A semi-circular arched gate with three covings and 2 blind bays with only one, furnish the ground floor. Above, without separation, runs a gallery of 5 arches supported on double columns. Bulky capitals, cords, bands very worked and in strong relief, indicate a novel of the end of time. On the large coving develops a representation, with 6 "knights", of the fight of the Virtues and the Vices. On the intermediate arch, birds, monsters and human beings are tangled in vegetal arabesques. The sculptures of the capitals, abacus included, extend over the eardrums of the false doors and form a wide band. In the Renaissance part on the right, the artist has arranged above a low door and around a large scallop shell, a very beautiful crowning with scrolls, garlands and fleurons. Next to it a corner buttress shows another shell in a pediment. The North wall, which has been modified many times, has however retained a large pointed arch towards its middle and a second one a little more towards the East. Old buildings, Benedictine ones say, existed there. Remains of arches and Romanesque openings stand side by side with ogival windows. The eastern wall of the chevet, largely rebuilt, still shows 2 semicircular arches with ringed columns, nail-head cords and remains of an arcade similar to that which once adorned the north side of this same chevet. Although Romanesque, it therefore seems to have been rectangular from its origin. To the left opens a large window whose central arch is polylobed. This provision is quite rare in Saintonge. The south wall, supported by numerous buttresses, one of which, the first to the west, is decorated with an escutcheon carried by two angels, is pierced with large third-point windows. The square bell tower, without style, covered with a slate pyramid, has retained a few loopholes. 3 of its arched windows each house a bell. The interior, refurbished two centuries ago, comprises 2 naves separated by square pillars. The one on the left, the old one, which has 5 bays, has its ogival vaulted apse on multiple ribs which are lost on the columns after having drawn diamonds adorned with hanging keys. In these lozenges, letters forming a difficult to read inscription, a real rebus with a grid, indicate that this work was made in 1538. Despite its name based on the idea of "fountain" this town which was formerly called Saint-Martin-de-Fontaine, has no fountains, but wells. The shallow one, very close to the church, was perhaps even less deep in the past and was undoubtedly the fountain which gave its name to the parish. The church of Fontaine-d'Ozillac is patronized by Saint Martin.