French Renovation Project ~ La Bougnolière

Parthenay, the capital of the Gâtine region, is best-known for the wealth of historic buildings which provide a congenial atmosphere exceptionally evocative of a medieval town: notable - examples the castle and its ramparts, the many half-timbered houses, and the Romanesque and gothic churches.

 

But Parthenay's heritage is not just confined to monuments alone; its fine ceramics, rich folklore, and traditional music, testify equally to the town's antiquity.

Parthenay in the Middle Ages was the seat of one of the most powerful baronies in Poitou. It played an important part in the struggles between the kings of England and France at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The town, with its three concentric rings of defensive walls stretching over three kilometres, still retains many notable reminders of the period: the Saint Jacques Gate - to the North, the Citadel Gate to the South, the ramparts to the West, and the castle itself (thirteenth century) which rises from the end of a rocky promontory defended by the River Thouet.

Parthenay is a stunningly beautiful medieval city.

Through the gateway, on rue de la Citadelle, the attractively simple Romanesque church of Ste-Croix faces the mairie across a small garden, which offers views over the ramparts and the gully of St-Jacques, with its medieval houses and vegetable plots climbing the opposite slope. Further along rue de la Citadelle is a house where Cardinal Richelieu used to visit his grandfather, and then a handsome but badly damaged Romanesque door, all that remains of the castle chapel of Notre-Dame-de-la-Couldre.

Of the castle itself, practically nothing is left, but from the tip of the spur where it once stood you can look down on the twin-towered gateway and the Pont St-Jacques, a thirteenth-century bridge through which the nightly flocks of pilgrims poured into the town for shelter and security. To reach it, turn left under the Tour de l'Horloge and down the medieval lane known as Vaux St-Jacques. The lane is highly evocative of that period, with crooked half-timbered dwellings crowding up to the bridge.