La small urban city is located between the Gâtine and the Poitevin marsh, on the road to the beaches of Vendée. Cited for the first time in 1080, in the cartulary of Saint-Cyprien de Poitiers, its parish fell under the election, seat and castellany of Fontenay-le-Comte. Her habitat is nestled in the hollow of a cereal plain, Its streets are labyrinthine et sometimes lined with old dry stone walls. In 1804, the first prefect of Deux-Sèvres, Etienne Dupin, wrote that it existed in Saint-Rémy a windmill near La Goupilière, that the land of the commune is only a vast limestone quarry and that the trade consists mules, horses, oxen and sheep. A passion for horses that still continues on the edge of the town with the Equinoxe Equestrian Relay.
What to see in Saint-Rémy-en-Plaine?
01. The two Towers (private property visible from the street)
Le entrance gate from the 13th century, consisting of two towers and a carriage porch, is the only one monumental remains of an ancient castle, hidden in the palm of the Rémytoise plain, once surrounded by a urban wall and who was certainly occupied by a garrison responsible for monitoring the axis passing Niort-Nantes. In 1734, the lordship of Saint-Rémy was leased to Jean Desaivre View Françoise-Marguerite de la Béraudière whose father was captain of dragoons in the eponymous regiment. These two stone spectra are immortalized in The Black Towers, a science fiction novel by Laurent Cornut.
02. Saint-Rémy church
Although the central stained glass window of the apse represents thebishop who baptized Clovis, his surname perhaps also recalls the legend of Rémy, pagan shepherd who, attending a miracle of the Pezenne nun (the gushing of a source), is converted to then become hermit in the Sèvre valley. The 12th century church depended on Benedictine priory of Saint-Martin de Livrée falling under theabbey of Saint-Liguaire. It is ransacked by Protestant soldiers of the lord of Saint-Gelais in 1621, then renovated in 1713 as evidenced by the inscription on the double arch of the apse. There nave is rebuilt in 1902 under the ministry of Father Denizeau as evidenced by the year engraved on the gable of the main facade. In 1925, it was included in the supplementary inventory of Historic Monuments. The choir and the buttress columns are original, the apse window on the left is old while the other two were redone in the 19th century, stylized wheels – solar symbols – are sculpted on the modillions of the apse cornice…
Other curiosities to see…
- The Courneuve (registered house from the 15th century)
- The House of the Plain (former donkey farm converted into a multi-purpose municipal hall)
