Route details
Description
Happy hiking and remember that you are not alone on the trails you are about to travel. We therefore invite you to respect nature: avoid picking flowers and plants, do not leave any trash behind, respect inhabited places, stay on the trails, keep dogs on a leash.
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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
Installed in 1894 in an old flour mill which had pure spring water still used today to wash the butter grains, the Echiré Dairy Cooperative is currently the leader on the quality butter market. With a nutty flavor, its Charentes-Poitou butter, labeled Protected Designation of Origin, 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 uses it in its famous mash. It is the only company in the world to produce butter in barrel churns made of blond teak from Vietnam, rot-proof and free of tannin! In 2003, the cooperative received the prize for best French exporter awarded by the London Chamber of Commerce. Moreover, Japan is the 3rd largest international customer.
Step 3
The wash house is a place of conviviality where only the women of the village meet.
We sometimes compete for places, but we also help each other. News is exchanged there, chatter is rife: “The only room where people talk!” ". Little family secrets are revealed: “All intimate life can be read in the linen”. Hence the expression “Wash your dirty laundry as a family”. The judgments of others or rivalries often encourage slander served by formidable vocabulary. The sound volume of the voices, as well as that of the threshers in action, sometimes arouse complaints from neighboring residents, but the laughter and familiarity of the washerwomen help to nourish the village community.
Step 4
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 strongly and conveniently new”.
Step 5
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 6
Beyond a gate, a castle directly inspired by Perrault's tales... Built in the 19th century, the Chantemerle castle nevertheless presents 17th century architecture. The theatrical side and surprise effects of Baroque art are sought after. Observe the balcony supported by sculpted consoles and the central bay marked by a triple bay decorated with a garland. The most spectacular undoubtedly remains the four false corner towers marked by a projection which gives this modest-sized castle all the scale and prestige of the great monuments. Several annexed buildings enrich the character of this local heritage: a long avenue of stables and outbuildings, the remains of a chapel, an orangery and a horse riding arena, visible from a gate below, which was used to go up the water from the Sèvre.
Step 7
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 8
The wash house built at the foot of the village, along a wide curve of the river, is subject to variations in the water level, so much so that it is equipped with winches allowing a wooden apron to be raised or lowered on a rail on which the washerwoman sat. It is covered with a tiled roof and is closed on the west side to protect against wind and rain. During the winter, the women preferred another unsheltered washhouse, located 30 m away. on the path upstream of the hillside, on a spring with a constant temperature of 11°c.
Step 9
Located on the edge of a bend in the Sèvre, the late Middle Ages castle has been remodeled since the Renaissance. It was owned in the 1667th century. Laurens, then Berland whose coat of arms is visible on the south turret. From XNUMX to the first half of the XNUMXth century, it belonged to the Jourdain de Villiers, then to Mr. Laurence and, shortly after, was acquired by Clémentin de la Rochebrochard whose son sold it to Doctor Auguste Tonnet at the end of the XNUMXth century. Its facade is flanked by corbelled turrets on a cul-de-lampe and the attic (upper part) is pierced with oculi (bull's eyes). The staircase tower straddling the building attests to the age of the place. A sundial surmounts the entrance door. Private property.
Step 10
In 1942, the prisoners' assistance committee organized a fair and a flower boat competition. The festival committee took over in 1988. 2003 was for the commune of St-Maxire the year of consecration of the flower boat festival receiving the Grand Prize for excellence in maintaining the art of the festival awarded by the Federation national festival committees of France. The same year, the 53rd edition was celebrated on the theme of cinema, with the mobilization of 10 boats, 10 to 15.000 paper flowers per boat, 400 volunteers out of 1.156 inhabitants for the pleasure of the eyes of 6.000 visitors. This event is scheduled for the last Sunday in July. Ruined wash house at the foot of the stone bridge. Picnic area.
Step 11
The limestone soil of St-Maxire is one of the receptacles of the waters of the granitic Gâtine. This natural phenomenon is explained by the fact that the Deux-Sèvres department is crossed by the Poitou threshold. This is located between two granite massifs (Armorican and Central) and two sedimentary basins (Parisian and Aquitaine). On the granite part (north and east), a dense network of watercourses irrigates their surface basins (Sèvre Nantaise, Thouet, Cébron). Its water tables are shallow. This old land offers a bocage landscape with few crops and drilling. On the sedimentary part (south and west), the tables are aquifers. The young, limestone lands present a plain landscape (Niortais, Lambon and Dive basins) with underground, but shallow, rivers.
Step 12
The hamlet of Optolleries is located near one of the routes of the Deux-Sévrienne Jacquaire Way. It was mentioned in 1498 as the “village of the Hospitallers”. This monastic and chivalrous order was to provide room and board and provide care to the jacquets, pilgrims traveling in the direction of Santiago de Compostela. The commandery of Saint-Jean de Jerusalem of Saint-Rémy-en-Gâtine had outbuildings there.
Step 13
Abbot Vilaine de Saint-Cyprien de Poitiers (?) donated the Saint-Genest or Habites priory to the Benedictines who would work to deforest the region. It was rebuilt by its chaplain Pierre Berlant, canon of Poitiers Cathedral, who was buried in its chapel in 1668. Traditionally, every August 28, a religious procession took place from the town of Saint-Maxire to Les Habites. “The Adventures of Baron de Faeneste” by Agrippa d'Aubigné recounts the stratagem imagined by an inhabitant of the hamlet of Habites, Mathurin Biraud de la Bithe. Ruined by a long trial and forced to leave the country to flee his creditors, he sold in front of a notary, for a sum paid in cash, to his lawyer Cheneverd de Niort a piece of land which is none other than the cemetery of Saint-Rémy, the one adjoining the chapel dependent on the Benedictine priory.
Step 14
The Coudray-Salbart washhouse is located at the foot of the castle. It's a nice place to take a break and even dip your feet in the water to cool off!
Step 15
An impressive fortified castle attributed to the legendary fairy Mélusine, at the heart of the struggles between the kings of France and England, it controlled the crossing of the Sèvre Niortaise, the southern border of the lords of Parthenay-Larchevêque.
It is classified as a 13th century castle. the best preserved in France and England. An architectural model for the time, it has unique features: 1 rooms in an exceptional state of conservation; pointed barrel vaults, ribbed vaults or dome pierced with an oculus; vast archer niches; sheath (corridor in the thickness of the walls) unique in Europe... Educational replica of a trebuchet (siege engine), self-guided tours (show up XNUMX hour before closing for the last one) or guided tours (school or not, all year round , by reservation), monthly activities for young and old.
Step 16
The lack of water, a sensitive issue at the beginning of the 18th century, led to the installation of several public fountains in towns and villages leading to the gradual elimination of wells and water carriers. The fountain with pendulum and tap proved more practical than the winch wells, but, from the end of the 19th century, some were destroyed for the requirements of automobile traffic.
Step 17
The Château de La Taillée is a private property, listed as a historic monument. The castle was built in a single stone cast at the beginning of the 1629th century in the Henri IV-Louis XIII style by Josué du Fay de la Taillée, who married Préjente de Magné in 1. Their son Louis married Elisabeth Martel de Vandré, 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 under the name of George XNUMXst. Then, 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 from generation to generation to their direct descendants who still own it today.
Step 18
The town of Saint-Gelais is crossed for 4,450 km by the railway linking, when the line opened in 1882, Niort to Montreuil-Bellay via Thouars, on the prestigious Paris-Bordeaux line. Travelers boarding the Echiré – Saint-Gelais station could thus reach the capital directly! The problem of crossing the Sèvre valley was solved by the construction of a 56 m viaduct at Chalusson. long, comprising two arches made of metal beams resting on three stone piles. Note that from the pedestrian bridge which crosses the central pier, just under the railway tracks, daring swimmers used to dive into the river to impress the girls! Swimming prohibited today.
Step 19
On the road from La Fuye to Chalusson, the Suiré home dominates the Sèvre valley in the distance. Private property, its main interest lies in its towers from the beginning of the 1843th century, like those of the Coudray-Salbart fortress, in Echiré. In the Middle Ages, the lord of Suiré shared ownership of the Chalusson mill with that of La Carte (hamlet of Cherveux). The elegant manor house dates back to XNUMX.
Step 20
The washhouse, used until the 1960s, is fed by a stream which is served by the Gonnières spring and the underground current of the Pelle-Chat valley.
Located at the northern entrance to the village and easy to access, its clear water basin is crossed by a light current. Once the rinsing was finished, the housewives and servants went back to the village and spread the white linen on the grass in the meadows to dry.
Step 21
Originally FORDING the Sèvre Niortaise, access to this remarkable place was by crossing the large meadow of Bourbias, surrounded by poplars and willows, bordered to the south by the river and to the north by the stream which runs along rue de la Roulerie, from which the warm water source of Gonnières or Gonaies springs. Following a municipal decision in 1906, a footbridge was installed to improve the living conditions of the Gelasians. Indeed, this passage allowed the inhabitants of the hamlets of Quéray and La Roulerie to come to the municipal school, to obtain supplies from the traders and craftsmen established in the village and to go to worship. At the end of the footbridge, the clear water of the LAUNDRY offered a privileged place for rinsing white linen. The nearby DRINKER was used by the village's pet owners. The old footbridge was replaced in 1998.
Step 22
Inspired by Guy Trouvé's work "The Guardians of Memory" and inaugurated in 2005, the "Bords de Sèvre" circuit offers walkers a 3,7 km rural and shady setting: development of seven hectares of meadows into paths and enhancement of small heritage (medieval bridge, the 1th century Gondin mill, the New mill, the so-called “de la Sablière” wash house, the Chemin Vieux, etc.). This development was financed by the "83% landscape and development" from the construction of the A XNUMX (landscape, economic and tourist development of the areas crossed by a motorway).
Step 23
In 1844, the town allocated part of the Protestant cemetery for the elevation of the building. Its construction was possible ten years later thanks to a municipal subscription, an extraordinary tax and a state subsidy. Its plan is clover-shaped. The temple was abandoned in 1970, but in 1988 the city obtained a financial commitment for its rehabilitation during the visit of the Minister of Culture François Léotard. Since 1989, the monument, managed by the municipality, has been a place for exhibitions and concerts. Its restoration dates from 1990.
Step 24
His surname indicates a Carolingian creation. In the Middle Ages, its cure was appointed by the prior of Saint-Gelais. The church was undoubtedly remodeled at the end of the Middle Ages. Fragments of Gothic style architecture remain. During the Wars of Religion, it was partly destroyed by the Protestants and purchased by Pierre Corbin during the Revolution. In 1843, it was given to the town, then rebuilt in 1882, except for its bell tower. The monument was registered in 1991 and restored a year later. The paving is lowered close to its original level to reveal the base of the buttress columns of the apse. The building is composed of a single nave with three bays. The north chapel has a font arranged in such a way as to create a baptismal space. Its apse has a cul-de-four vault. The stained glass windows date from the end of the XNUMXth century.
Step 25
The dead end of the same name was once an important street for the former inhabitants of the town, because it had at its entrance, on the left, a common oven, as attested by the Napoleonic land register of 1808, and offered a shortcut to reach the direction from Niort through the Grands Bois. The oven was decommissioned in 1838. At number 87, there is a singular operating building probably dating from the XNUMXth century. Located on a private property including a house built at the end of the XNUMXth century, a garden and outbuildings, it is of exceptional quality both in terms of its volumes and its specific layout. We note its arrangement of limestone cut stones and its vast single-storey basket-handle openings. The upper part of the masonry is made almost dry joint in small, perfectly squared and calibrated stones.
Step 26
The Mélusine fountain was inaugurated in 2009, on the occasion of the festivities of the 900th anniversary of Saint-Gelais. The order placed with Patrick Chappet, a plastic sculptor from Charente, concerns a work which identifies the commune, evokes Mélusine to recall the origin of the founding of the village, is the symbol of the passage of nine centuries and fits resolutely into the future . The evocation of water is a clear reminder of the dominant environment in Saint-Gelais. The glass blocks let the light play through the river fish and aquatic plants.
Step 27
At the end of the 1109th century, Gelasius was the successor of Hilary, evangelist of Poitou. The church, dedicated to him, was built in XNUMX by Raoul de Lusignan known as le Brun, near the priory on which it depends. Its oldest part, apse and choir, is entirely representative of Romanesque art. The more recent facade, with its elegant portal, is in the flamboyant Gothic style and was undoubtedly rebuilt, like the nave, at the end of the XNUMXth century. From the square, we can see the large buttresses placed in support of the pillars, and the bell tower, a massive square tower flanked on one of its sides by a turret ending in a stone cone. Located at the top of rue de la Cueille-Saint-Jacques, it welcomes pilgrims coming down from Parthenay on their way to Santiago de Compostela.
Step 28
Circular temple (rotunda 7 meters in diameter) built according to Chavonet's plans from 50. The temple was put into service in 1846, but a faulty implementation of the vault made all words inaudible: work was carried out. therefore undertaken in 1849. Some work was carried out in 1851. The temple is used for Protestant worship once every three months. (source: monumentum.fr)
Step 29
Renaissance style castle built by the Protestant Charles V of Saint-Gelais. First building of which only a large room with fireplace remains. Building enlarged 20 years later with the addition of a perpendicular wing. Hexagonal tower with a spiral staircase. Presence of the cup and the basket of the Holy Scene sculpted at the ridge of the south gable. (Source: niortagglo.fr)