Randonnée Mélusine au bord de la Sèvre
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.
Your itinerary
Step 1: The village of Échiré
Échiré (Eschiré in 1218) takes its name from Scauriacum, domain of the Gallo-Roman Scaurius. Numerous Merovingian remains and sarcophagi, now disappeared, attest to this ancient existence. The XNUMXth century church dominates the old and famous dairy whose butter is appreciated by all the great European restaurants.
Step 2: The castle of La Taillée
The Château de la Taillée and its two 500th century defensive dovecotes are accessible by a 1566 m round trip. Built in XNUMX by the de Gascougnolles, the Château de la Taillée cannot be visited. The dovecotes, classified as historic monuments, have a stone roof, small windows at the top and, at the base, culverin holes for defense.
Step 3: The Sèvre
The concavity of a meander reveals a view of the Sèvre valley.
Step 4: Coudray-Salbart Castle
An impressive 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, the 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.
Step 5: The Salbart washhouse
The Coudray-Salbart castle is intimately linked to the destiny of Mélusine, the fairy builder of Poitou.
As for the washhouse, located at its feet, it is haunted by the washerwoman fairy who does her laundry out of sight. If another woman ventures before dawn to spread her sheets in the cold water, she is pushed aside with heavy blows!
Step 6: The Braye fountain
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 7: New mill and its washhouse
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 8: Milan Farm
The Milan farm built on the site of a Gallo-Roman villa called “villa Milon”, given by Clovis in 567 to the monks of Saint-Maixent and which was at the origin of the first fortress of Coudray.
Step 9: Château-Gaillard (private)
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.