This village, at the crossroads of the forest massif of Chize and the agricultural plains of South Deux-Sèvres, is a very active center of attraction with its shops and services. Step on vacation road and on the Way of Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, along the GR 36, this town has no less than one dense heritage : the Rimbault mill and the Romanesque church of Saint-Eutrope in Cormenier. The future King Henry IV would even have stayed there, according to local tradition, in an old hunting lodge. Land of hikes between marshes and forest, Beauvoir-sur-Niort invites you to discover the European fauna of Zoodyssey in Villiers en Bois or the wine-growing past of the surrounding communes which belong, and these are the last towards the North, to the Cognac zone.
What to see in Beauvoir-sur-Niort?
01. The Saint-Eutrope church of Cormenier
THEroman church is built under the patronage of thePoitevine Abbey Saint-Jean-de-Montierneuf, but in the diocese of Saintes. It is dedicated to Saint Eutrope, the first bishop of Saintes martyred in the 4th century.
In the first half of the 12th century, its bell tower no longer exists or has never been achieved, reducing today to a unfinished building. Victim of the Wars of Religion, It is two-thirds destroyed, then repaired in 1744. A total renovation of the nave is undertaken in 1877 thanks to the priest, theAbbot Léon Brisson and the generosity of a few families. The span under the bell tower and the apse, remarkable specimens of the style Saintongeais novel, were classified in 1909 under Historic Monuments.
02. The Rimbault mill
Located on the highest point of the town (90 m high) and on the edge of the Chizé forest, he is I'unique windmill-tower in operation in sud-deux-sévrien. This old ordinary mill, dependent on the lordship of Rimbault until the Revolution, was registered in 1975 on thesite inventory and its safeguarding association received the Masterpiece in Danger award for having carried out his F&B. The site comes back to life today during and can also be rented for revelry.
In 2018, theTREES association (Remarkable trees: assessment, research, study and preservation) gives the municipality the label Remarkable wooded ensemble to highlight the work undertaken to maintain the centuries-old oaks of the Rimbault promenade.
03. Nearby, the Zoodyssée
At the heart of state forestThis European wildlife park (67 different species) also includes a breeding and reintroduction center into the wild of European mink (unique in Europe) and little bustards of which Deux-Sèvres is one of the rare French departments where the bird still evolves in the wild.
Other curiosities to see:
- Saint-Jacques church from the 11th century rebuilt in the 19th century
- The castle of La Revêtizon (19th century), Rimbault (The future King Henri IV would have slept in this old hunting lodge),
- The former first cooperative dairy of Deux-Sèvres,
- The former Brillault Frères slipper and shoe factory (1908-1996).
