De lavoirs en châteaux / version été – Station de Trail

Discover the Niort – Marais Poitevin Trail Station, its most beautiful landscapes and its best routes for a day, a weekend or a sporting week!

Route details

Niort

Trail

Square white and black sign with title Trail Station

Nature (fauna, flora)

Description

This route is part of the Niort – Marais Poitevin Trail Station.

A course that has a nice sequence! Surprising for an image of flat terrain. Lots of small climbs and descents to follow with rolling parts interspersed making this course varied and physical. Please note from November 01 to March 31 the chain boat is not available, so you need to add a few kilometers.

-> Marked trail Trail Station

DifficultyDifficultDuration01h35Elevation167 D- / 168 D+Distance16,2 km

See the itinerary

From washhouses to castles / summer version – Trail Station

Distance:16,2 km

Your itinerary

Getting to the starting point to report a problem

Step 1: Donkey mill

This nickname, spelled in Old French “anne” or “enne” meaning duck, perhaps results from the constant presence of ducks.
This private property is a former wheat or fulling mill mentioned as early as 1260 and well into the 1864th century. of Madame de Mougon, owner of the Surimeau home. In 14, the prefect of Deux-Sèvres authorized the owners of the mills of Ste-Pezenne to undertake work to channel the course of the river. It is still the golden age of the Sèvre mills which transform wheat grains into white flour exported as far as the Antilles! After the war of 1969, the appearance of electric flour mills led to their disappearance. The Ane mill reach was converted into a communal swimming pool after the Second World War. Imagine bathers in one-piece suits, wooden cabins and diving boards! A municipal decree prohibited all public swimming in XNUMX.

Step 2: The Sèvre Niortaise

The Sèvre Niortaise is a coastal river which has its source near Sepvret in Deux-Sèvres, crosses Niort, then descends into the Marais Poitevin of which it forms the main hydraulic artery, to end up flowing into the Atlantic Ocean in the Anse de l'Aiguillon opposite the Ile de Ré.

Step 3: Church of Sainte Pezenne

The oldest church in Niort built on the site of a temple dedicated to Thor, rebuilt in the 2003th-XNUMXth centuries, remodeled in the XNUMXth century. in the XNUMXth century. and registered in XNUMX.
At the time of Clovis, Pezenne fled to Aquitaine from his native Spain where abuses reigned. She died of exhaustion on a hillside in the Sèvre Niortaise. Miraculous healings around his tomb are the origin of a popular pilgrimage. In 1147, during the Second Crusade, Eleanor of Aquitaine donated the remains to the Count of Vermandois who took them to the north of France, to St-Quentin. The city was taken in 1557 by the army of Philip II of Spain. The emperor gives the relic to his sister, Empress of Germany. This, upon her death, returns her to her country of origin. His body was placed in a chapel in the royal palace of the Escorial in Madrid. A phalanx of the nun was offered to the Pexin parish in 1955.

Step 4: Sciecq

Sitting on a promontory, the town, grouped around its church, is surrounded by a large loop of the Sèvre Niortaise. Moreover, its Latin name, Scissoe aquae, is thus linked to the existence of four ancient fords. Saziacum is mentioned in 989 regarding a reconciliation between the Duke of Aquitaine William IV and his wife Emma. The shell, sculpted to the right of the old south door of the sanctuary, reminds us that Sciecq is located on one of the secondary routes of the Way of Saint-Jacques de Compostela. In this natural enclosure, its landscape – the miniature meeting of the plain, the marsh and the bocage – and its river heritage are an invitation to refreshing rural walks.

Step 5: Sainte Madeleine Church

The church consists of a single nave with a ceiling of 25 m. long, without transept, with vaulted apse and painted with a starry celestial vault. The capitals of the second bay supporting the bell tower are decorated with an ox's head held by the horns by two monsters, a centaur hunting by shooting his arrows, a mermaid (La Mellusine) braiding her hair and accosted by 'a wild boar... To the right of the walled southern door, a sculpted shell reminds us that the building is located on one of the secondary roads of Jacques via the Deux-Sèvres.

Step 6: Chain Boat

The chain boat called "Le Mursay" is a system that was put in place to cross the canals of the Marais Poitevin simply and quickly. Pull on the chain, it is the latter which, with the strength of your arms, will take you to the other side of the bank.

Step 7: Mursay Castle

This manor house, today a garden of ruins classified as a Historic Monument, was in the 1576th century the stronghold of Agrippa d'Aubigné, grandfather of the Marquise de Maintenon, great poet of the Baroque period and squire of the future Henri IV who passed through there in XNUMX the happiest days of his life. Moreover, the Allée du Roy, an avenue of lime trees three hundred years old, bears this name in memory of his stay.
Located on the left bank of the Sèvre, on a terrace placed on stilts out of the floods, below the Gallic path known as Magné, close to a ford, the old castle serving as an outpost at Coudray-Salbart has been transformed from 1596 to 1613 as a pleasure castle by Agrippa d'Aubigné who basty it strongly and conveniently new.

Step 8: Wolf Castle

Private property. In a green setting stands the Château des Loups which has managed to preserve its anonymity far from all eyes.
This magnificent estate with the castle as a backdrop, a 19th century Renaissance style residence overlooking the Sèvre Niortaise.

See the itinerary

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