Route details
Description
Some difficulties and obstacles which can become more difficult in the event of rain with slippery areas. Varied route with passages on main paths and small paths. A difficult course because the entire first part will be extremely rolling and in the middle of the course a technical zone with a series of small paths, river crossings...
-> Marked trail Trail Station
Your itinerary
Step 1
In the 1866th century, the building was rebuilt and enlarged. Its original apse is replaced by a straight apse and its 1870th century nave is covered with ribbed vaults. It was renovated in 1879 and rebuilt after 2011. Only the octagonal dome on squinches of the transept square, the pillars with Romanesque capitals and a southern window splayed into tiers have been preserved. The church was consecrated in 2012 by the bishop of Poitiers accompanied by sixty priests. Then, the monument was restored from XNUMX to XNUMX.
Step 2
The Laiterie Coopérative d'Echiré is today the market leader in quality butter. With a nutty taste, its Charentes-Poitou AOC butter has been served at the Elysée since René Coty (1956), at Buckingham Palace and in the Principality of Monaco and the Poitevin chef Joël Robuchon used it in his famous mash. In 2003, the company received the prize for best French exporter awarded by the London Chamber of Commerce.
Step 3
The castle was built in one go at the beginning of the 1683th century. in the Henri IV-Louis XIII style by Josué du Fay de la Taillée. Their son Louis married in 1705 with Elisabeth Martel de Vandré, the niece of Eléonore Desmier d'Olbreuse who was nicknamed "the grandmother of Europe". Indeed, his daughter, Sophie-Dorothée married Georges-Louis of Brunswick-Lüneburg, future king of England. Georges-Guillaume du Fay married Françoise du Vergier de la Rochejacquelein in XNUMX. Through her mother, born Elisabeth de Caumont d'Adde, she is the great-granddaughter of the warrior and poet Agrippa d'Aubigné. During the Revolution, the family emigrated. The castle, put up for sale as national property, did not find a buyer allowing its legitimate owners to recover it on their return from exile and pass it on to their direct descendants who still own it today.
Step 4
13th century fortified castle attributed to the legendary fairy Mélusine, at the heart of the struggles between France and England, it prohibited the crossing of the Sèvre Niortaise, southern border of the lords of Parthenay-Larchevêque. A barbican followed by a farmyard and a winch drawbridge leads to the castle which still has six different intact towers (Portal, Bois-Berthier, Double, Saint-Michel, Moulin and Grosse Tour): round or beak; vaulted in a broken barrel, with ribbed ribs or in a dome pierced with an oculus; monumental fireplaces; vast archer niches; latrines. They are connected by a corridor (a shaft) lit by rare loopholes. The Coudray-Salbart is undergoing major restoration work and is open part of the year. For a summer weekend, the fortress is also in the spotlight during its medieval festivals in July and August.
Step 5
Located near the Coudray-Salbart castle. Facilities: table, trash cans, parking and camper van area.
Step 6
The old feudal manor, held in 1678 by the squire Jacques de Liniers, was transformed into a home at the end of the 1720th century by Monsieur Fouquet de Massogne; the XNUMX dovecote having been preserved.
The outbuildings of the castle contained the collection of vintage cars of the transport entrepreneur Roger Baillon who died in Brûlain in 1996. The wreck of a Talbot T26 Grand Sport; a Ferrari 250 GT spider California, formerly owned by Alain Delon; three Delahaye coaches, post-war type 235 models developed in the workshops of Levallois coachbuilder Henri Chapron, were put up for auction in 2015, during the Rétromobile show in Paris.
Step 7
Presence of a launching pontoon.