Circuit cyclable 10 – Découverte du Val-du-Mignon, 3 communes en 1
Route details
Description
Safety instructions – Wearing a helmet is strongly recommended. I drive on the right. I respect the highway code. I check the condition of my bike (brakes and lighting). I stay on the marked trails. I respect the marsh, a sensitive and classified site.
Cycle route 10 – Discovery of Val-du-Mignon, 3 towns in 1
Distance:20,2 km
Your itinerary
Step 1: Usseau
A place of passage between the Aunis plain, the Marais Poitevin and the sea, Usseau derives from Ussena meaning a hillock planted with vines. Attached to the canton of Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon, the commune is made up of five hamlets locally nicknamed the Gaps: Antigny, Le Grand Breuil, Olbreuse, Le Plénisseau and Ussolière. Located at the crossroads of an ancient Roman road leading from Saintes to Nantes, the village tells 2000 years of local history. Remains of several ancient sites have been revealed during trenching, gardening or plowing. A former Huguenot center, Usseau is the birthplace of Eléonore Desmier born in 1639 in Olbreuse. Through marriages, her descendants are present in seventeen European dynasties, hence her nickname of grandmother of Europe. Every two years, a summer show is organized in the courtyard of his castle to honor his memory.
Step 2: Saint-Pierre Church
At the end of the 10th century, William, lord of Usseau, gave the Benedictine priory of Saint-Pierre to the abbey of Saint-Florent located in Saumur. The 12th century church was enlarged in the 14th century. It was devastated during the Wars of Religion. The upper parts were subsequently reworked. Its western facade is flanked by buttresses crowned with circular overhanging elements corresponding to the stems of watchtowers, reminding us that the building was fortified.
To see: medieval sarcophagi from archaeological excavations, an incomplete sarcophagus decorated with crosses on a staff at the head and bottom, tombstones from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Step 3: Eléonore Desmier d'Olbreuse
She is the wife of the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg-Zell, Elector of Hanover. In 1685, she welcomed into her duchy all the troubled Poitevin Protestant nobility. Through marriages, the d'Olbreuse blood is present in 17 European dynasties, hence her nickname of grandmother of Europe. There is a genealogical relationship with the Mitterrand family.
Step 4: Olbreuse Castle
Rebuilt in the 1760th or 1967th century, the castle is made up of a quadrilateral flanked by four corner towers with four floors of loopholes to protect against bands of prowlers during wars. One of the walls was removed in 1973 to allow the construction of a wing perpendicular to the central dwelling, the enlargement of the windows and the raising of the first floor of the main body. At the end of the XNUMXth century, the wing floor was raised, its roof was replaced by a frame covered with zinc and the tower at the back was demolished. After slow deterioration due to lack of financial resources, the castle was renovated in XNUMX by Christiane Desmier d'Olbreuse and her husband Félix Maingueneau. It was registered in XNUMX.
Private property. Free guided tour of the exteriors from July to mid-August. For more information, contact Geneviève de Réals 05.49.04.98.65. And [email protected]
Step 5: Priaire(s), its history – part 1
One of the southernmost communes of the Niort Urban Community, on the border of Deux-Sèvres and Charente-Maritime, the least extensive and populated in the canton of Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon, Priaire(s ), which is written with or without final s, is cited for the first time in 1044 in the cartulary of the abbey of Saint-Jean-d'Angély and belonged to Aunis, falling within the generality and election of La Rochelle, then Deux-Sèvres in 1790. Its terroir was formerly in one of the Cognac appellation zones. The vine, cultivated over a large area, produced excellent brandy until the phylloxera crisis of 1873 gradually giving way to cooperative dairies and cereal crops.
Step 6: Priaire(s), its history – part 2
In 2019, the village merged with Usseau and Thorigny-sur-le-Mignon to form the new commune of Val-du-Mignon and became a delegated commune whose capital is Usseau. Imbued with rurality, it is today home to the department's only certified sustainable agriculture farm and a tobacco producer. It is by taking the time to stroll along the Subite and the Coudre that we discover the richness of the built heritage strongly inspired by the architecture of the neighboring Charentais department.
Its warm, limestone mound is also conducive to the flourishing of around thirty varieties of orchids growing in the woods and along the berms (narrow paths created between a canal and an earth embankment): Orchis bouc, Ophrys spider, Woodcock Ophrys, Hanged Man Orchis, Bird's Nest Neottie…
Step 7: Notre-Dame Church
In a charter of July 1039, William 1st, lord of Parthenay (990-1054), invited by Pope John Prayer(s). This donation is at the origin of the foundation of the priory (now disappeared). Formerly dependent on the diocese of Saintes and the archpriest of Surgères, the church was united with the parish of Usseau in 1813. It replaced the old sanctuary whose poverty was highlighted by visits in 1688 and 1718.
To see: baptismal font from 1629 and curious bell tower-wall in curly arch decorated with hooks and topped with a cross.
Step 8: Thorigny-sur-le-Mignon, its history – part 1
The smallest commune in the Niort Urban Community, located at the south-west tip of the canton of Beauvoir-sur-Niort, is so named to distinguish it from that of Thorigné, close to Celles-sur-Belle. The town developed on the left bank of the Mignon river. In the Middle Ages, the lordship depended on the election of Saint-Jean-d'Angély, the generality of La Rochelle and the lordship of Frontenay, hence a triple belonging to the provinces of Saintonge, Aunis and Poitou, generator of complications. The buildings mainly date from the 19th century; the oldest being located near the old 18th century water mill.
Step 9: Thorigny-sur-le-Mignon, its history – part 2
The absence of decoration on the facades and the simple frames reflect a modest habitat oriented towards agriculture. In 2019, the village merged with Usseau and Priaires to form the new commune of Val-du-Mignon and became a delegated commune whose capital is Usseau.
Thorigny has Notre-Dame church at its heart and, with the smallest number of inhabitants, forms a large family. Focused on agriculture and livestock, the village organizes farmers' markets and its traditional country festival every summer in its park in its park, on the last weekend of August. It is also the starting point for four hiking and mountain biking trails.
Step 10: Beaulieu Wood
This 73 hectare green lung, located to the west of the town, was identified in 2002 as a Natural Zone of Ecological Fauna and Flora Interest (ZNIEFF) by the Regional Scientific Council for Natural Heritage (CSRPN).
Step 11: Notre-Dame Church
The church was built in 1041 by the abbey of Saint-Maixent. In the 1829th century, a fee of three gold florins was paid to the bishop of Saintes. A national property during the Revolution, the sanctuary was demolished by its purchaser and the parish attached to that of Belleville. A subscription launched by the inhabitants and a subsidy from the State led in 1851 to the blessing of the new church by the dean of Beauvoir-sur-Niort. In 1908, the priest was installed after the purchase of a presbytery. Since XNUMX, the parish has depended on Saint-Etienne-la-Cigogne. Two projects of young Franco-Polish volunteers created a fresco and three stained glass windows for the building, as well as the openwork portal of the cemetery depicting a rising sun (a nod to the sunflower, called sun, adorning the street signs and echoing with that of the church fresco).
Step 12: The Ferme Giraud stopover lodge
Located near the old mill, the old agricultural operation appears on the Napoleonic land register of 1819. Its main building is made up of two levels of elevation to the south corresponding to the living rooms; one to the north for the cellar and the barn. Its south facade has bolt holes with flight stones which testify to the presence of a dovecote. Inside, two fireplaces and a “vegetable garden” are preserved. Opposite, the outbuildings (animal shelter and bakery), of more recent construction, delimit the courtyard.
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