Randonnée à cheval Les tertres
Route details
Description
Itinerary also passable by horse-drawn carriage.
Your itinerary
Step 1: The place called La Roche
This typical market garden village built near a feudal mound, on the edge of the marsh and the limestone plain. At the time, each building had a living area topped with an attic with access to the plain, and at the rear, a barn, hayloft and stable with access to the river.
Step 2: Ornithological park “Birds of the Marais Poitevin”
It is a natural space of 8 ha, in the heart of the wild marsh, in which more than 70 species of birds from the Marais Poitevin and domestic animals created in Poitou are presented. To help you recognize them, information panels and introductory ornithology modules are available along the discovery trail. Also learn to recognize the wild trees and plants of the wet marsh. At the end of the visit, a film will take you over the landscapes of the Marais Poitevin and you will discover the birds of this region in their intimacy. A labyrinth awaits you punctuated with educational panels on migration.
Step 3: Saint-Hilaire-la-Palud
The name of the village of Saint-Hilaire-la-Palud derives from the Latin "palus" meaning "marsh" and is not linked to its presumed unsanitary conditions (malaria), because there are no mosquitoes in the Marais Poitevin. Considered the capital of the Wild Marsh, it is one of the largest municipalities in the sector with an area of 3412 hectares including 1600 in wet marshes.
As for the dedication to Saint Hilaire, it is cited for the first time in the 7th century by the bishop of Poitiers. In the 10th century, the land was given to the chapter of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand of Poitiers by Guillaume Fier-à-Bras, Count of Poitou for the salvation of his soul; the canons thus offering the right to people who came to settle around the church to send their livestock to graze and cut the rooks in the marsh.
Step 4: Old railway line
Proceed towards the marsh following this steep path, an old railway line which served the villages at the beginning of the 20th century, from Ferrières d'Aunis to Epannes, then to Niort
Step 5: La Courance Stream
By turning right at the entrance to the hamlet, you can let your horses drink in the La Courance stream.
Step 6: La Palud
La Palud owes its name to the salt workers who once exploited the salt marshes. It seems that “La Palud” was once the main town of the territory currently included in the commune of St Hilaire la Palud; the remains found there in any case allow us to believe it: foundations of old constructions, sections of walls in the grounds, deer horns... The presence of an oven dating from the Middle Ages attests to the importance of the locality at that time.
Step 7: The mounds
This small road goes up to the big ones
cereal plots of the mounds. At a place called "Le Tertre", a south-facing promontory in the heart of the plain, an ancient villa with an area of one hectare was noted in 1976 by aerial photography. This region, said to be inhabited by the Gabellitans and named in the XNUMXth century by the bishop of Tours, is made up of a lake and the chapel of Issay located between Saint-Hilaire and Arçais, Le Pairé and Le Tertre.
Today this site is teeming with biodiversity treasures (“pyramidal”, “hanging man”, “goat”, “spider” orchids, crested melampyre, dyers’ broom).
Step 8: Bapaume Island
Bapaume Island, an ancient limestone islet in the Gulf of Pictons.
Step 9: Panorama of the wet marsh
On this long straight line, admire the exceptional panorama of the wet marsh that awaits you below; Let yourself be seduced and try to guess the layout of part of the coast of the former Gulf of Pictons.
Step 10: The mounds of Saint-Hilaire
Legend has it that they were formed from clods of earth that fell from Gargantua's hooves! Let us remember that François Rabelais stayed for several years in the marsh, in Maillezais, in Vendée.
Step 11: The Pérault pit
Horses can quench their thirst in the Pérault pit.
Step 12: Old tile factory
Until the middle of the 20th century, the manufacture of tiles and bricks constituted an important source of income for market gardening villages. The tiles and bricks were made from gray clay, or bri, which is found in a thick layer in the subsoil of the marsh.
Step 13: Montfaucon
Stretching in front of the Broue d'Arçais, the two street villages were described as considerable at the beginning of the 18th century by Claude Masse, ordinary engineer and geographer to the king, thus indicating an important river trade. Their houses have a double exposure: on the river leading to the marsh and towards the cultivated fields. The name of the River, an amphibious district, is linked to its belonging to the world of water.
As for Monfaucon, an islet inhabited since the Celtic era (discovery of bronze axes), was in the Middle Ages the seat of the lordship of the canons of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand of Poitiers.
Its main artery is Rue de la Venise Verte and the Montfaucon pier corresponds to the old municipal port partly developed during the Major Works of the Marais Poitevin.
The village still retains a small rural heritage (bread oven, ponne, boulite, queue de bac, etc.).