L'église Notre-Dame de l'Assomption

This church is dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. A collegiate church in the 15th century (run by a college of canons), it was destroyed in 1562 by the Lord of Romegoux, then rebuilt at the very beginning of the 17th century, in 1603. Devastated once again during the Revolution, then ravaged by termites, it was rebuilt in the early 19th century. The three-bay bell tower replaced a gable wall with two openings (one of which was blind) in the early 20th century. This bell tower houses a bell donated in 1737 by Frédéric-Guillaume de La Trémoille, Lord of Taillebourg. The building is in the shape of a Latin cross, with a very simple rectangular shape of a certain depth and two transepts (a transverse nave that cuts across the main nave of a church, thus forming a cross). The western façade, made of cut stone, has a simple semi-circular portal. The bell tower has three semi-circular arches with archivolts (a series of more or less ornate mouldings covering the arch or vault of an opening) decorated with geometric patterns, ending on the bare wall with bands featuring the same patterns. At the ends of the bell tower are two small bell towers with blind openings and scaly roofs topped with pinnacles (architectural details that crown a building). The two chapels of the transept open onto the choir through two semicircular arches and the circular chevet through a segmental arch without any moulding (a segmental arch is a type of arch with a radius of curvature of less than 180 degrees. It is sometimes also called an S-shaped arch. The segmental arch is one of the strongest types of arch because it can withstand thrust). In front of the church, there is a wayside cross engraved with the letters INRI, which in Latin stands for Iesus Nazarenus Rex Ludaeorum (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews).