Notre-Dame Church of Gardes-Le-Pontaroux

The Notre Dame de Gardes church was a priory dependent on the priory of Peyrat in the
former diocese of Périgueux. Built in the 11th and 12th centuries, the primitive church
was remodeled in the 15th and then in the 17th century. Its sober and elegant
architecture simply illustrates the Romanesque style in Angoumois.
The 12th century church was made up of a single nave with four barrel-vaulted bays, and
a false square ending in a semi-circular apse inscribed in a three-sided apse. The four
sides of the bell tower are decorated in the same way: the first floor is decorated with
three blind arcades on pilasters, the second, with two arches surrounded by a cordon
and framing twin bays recently uncorked, on small columns and capitals with extended
abacus, the third, of a single arc similar to the preceding ones.
In the 15th century, an aisle was added to the south side and the nave was “re-vaulted”
in ribbed vaulting over three bays. This juxtaposition is clearly visible on the western
facade which has a buttress at the junction of the two periods of construction and two
openings of radically different styles: the door of the nave, Romanesque, has retained
the two columns with sculpted capitals which frame it, the aisle door, whose abutments
are made of prismatic moldings, is surmounted by three sculpted pinnacles.
The sacristy, probably built in the 17th century, hides the lower part of the bell tower. The
lean-to in canal tiles comes to die under the first strip at the birth of the arch of the large
southern arcade.
Exceptional frescoes due to their state of conservation, give an additional reason to
visit this magnificent church, which a remarkable landscape places in the
foreground of Charente churches.
- The medieval decorations dating from the 13th century represent two knights
fighting on horseback under the cornice of the tympanum. Two fantastic animals
located in the tympanum, a fire-breathing winged dragon confronts a tiger or a lion.
- Paintings probably made in the 17th century completely cover the walls and the
vault of the sacristy. Restored between 2002 and 2005, they represent the Holy
Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) and angels on a blue background
dotted with stars.
- A rustic winged tabernacle and two wooden steps on which are depictions of the
Annunciation, the Visitation and the Crucifixion.
- A painting of a Holy Bishop, perhaps Saint Eutropius, appears in the apse