The Moulin de Génebrie and the archpriesthood of Mazières-sur-Béronne

Parking at La Boutauderie, near Rue de la Pompe

(S/E) Take Rue de la Pompe and continue right on Route de la Charprée.

(1) Turn right onto the path that follows the old railway line. Follow it to the end. Turn right onto the road towards Chantemerle. The path passes over two branches of the Berlande. There is a wash house at the confluence of the two branches of the river (to the west).

(2) Upon entering the hamlet of Petit Beauvais, turn right at the first crossroads onto Chemin des Gardelats. Follow this road, passing two streets in the hamlet on your left (Rue des Coteaux and Rue de la Chaume), then continue on Route du Moulin (on your right). The road passes in front of the place known as Le Portail, then crosses La Torserie and Le Bois Brulé. A few hundred metres further on, the road takes you to the Moulin de Génebrie.

(3) Turn right onto the path running alongside the mill. This path crosses the mill's leat and the Béronne river before climbing gently uphill.

(4) At the crossroads of four farm tracks, turn right. At the next crossroads, continue straight on until you reach the Route du Grand Châtelier.

(5) When you reach the road, turn left towards the houses in Etrochon. At the crossroads with Route de Vilaine, turn right.

(6) Turn right onto Chemin des Deux Communes. Pass the first street on the left and turn left at the second to follow Rue de la Franquette, leaving the Voisne farm behind you.
At the next crossroads, go straight ahead (the road on the right, going downhill, leads to the Roches wash house about 500 metres away).

(7) Shortly after the Etrochon waste sorting point, take the farm track on the right. It descends towards the River Béronne. After 100 metres, leave the right-hand track and stay on the gently sloping downhill track. At the next fork in the road, turn right. Shortly afterwards, the path follows the Béronne river, then moves slightly away from it to reach the houses at the bottom of Turzay.
Take the road on the right at the bottom of the valley and turn left at the next crossroads. The road will then begin to climb gradually.

(8) At the crossroads, take the farm track on the left. At the end of the track, turn left and continue straight ahead, leaving a track on the left 150 metres further on.

(9) At the end of the path, you will see a small trail in the woods on the right: take it until you reach the path that goes around the Cure du Prieuré de Mazières-sur-Boutonne.

(10) Once on the road, you will see a wash house right next to the Cure du Prieuré. Turn right and take the Rue de l'Ouche, which climbs steeply. You can admire the pretty houses of Mazières-sur-Boutonne.
At the crossroads with Rue du Bois de la Fontaine, continue straight ahead.

(11) Turn right and then right again at the next crossroads. The road takes you back to the crossroads you passed on the way there.

(8) Take the road on the left, which climbs slightly. This Chemin des Vignes crosses the hamlet of La Pimpenelle before arriving at La Boutauderie and returning to the starting point of the route (S/E).

Easy route on good paths and a few sections on quiet roads.

Parking is easier near the Mazières sur Béronne cemetery, about 500 m from (11).

The Archpriesthood of Mazières-sur-Béronne:
Former archpriesthood of Mazières-sur-Béronne, which includes a Gallo-Roman aqueduct, a 10th-century pre-Romanesque chapel, a Romanesque priory and a dovecote. The garden is said to be home to a thousand-year-old yew tree. Private property

The current residence still has the shape of a Gallo-Roman villa, with a courtyard and farmyard, a large 280-metre aqueduct, a water mill, a dovecote with running water and an impluvium; as well as 600 metres of dry stone walls surrounding six landscaped gardens (former cemeteries dating from before Charlemagne with a thousand-year-old yew tree, transformed into a park in 1780 by Vicar Pressac de Chagnaye).
In 507, after Vouillé, Clovis is said to have taken Brioux (coming from Saint Maixent) and buried his Franks killed in battle in these cemeteries, in the middle of which still stands the church of Sainte-Marie de Mazières.
In 966, Viscount Kadelen II of Aulnay and his wife Arsende granted the Benedictines of Saint-Cyprien de Poitiers, in the viguerie of Brioux, at the villa of Petit Mazières, their allodial estate with the church and everything they had there. The doctor of law Amelius, who witnessed the deed, must have been the archpriest at that time.
Around 1300, the pouillé (register) of the bishopric of Poitiers mentions, for the archpriesthood of Mellois: In the church of Mazières there is a chapel founded by Messire Geofoy Rolland, archpriest. The tombstone of this priest is still in the church of Mazières, which served as a burial place for archpriests, the lords of Mazières (de Poix, Thebault, Guillotin) and various privileged individuals (the innkeepers of Charzay who fed pilgrims to Compostela and the millers of the Vallées mill who were in charge of the archpriesthood's water mill).
After the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of Religion came the Age of Enlightenment:
the last archpriest to reside in Mazières from 1787 to 1802 was Messire Pierre Barbier, who took in and protected Jacques Jallet, saw his rural police powers increased by Article 8 of the Mazières list of grievances on 6 March 1789, and was the first Mayor of Mazières (from 1789 to 1792) and bought back the three national properties of the archpriesthood to remain in his home (gardens in 1791, presbytery in 1796 and church in 1798).
The second mayor of Mazières (from 1792 to 1807) was his nephew Bourcy, a judge who was married in the church in 1790. But the most illustrious nephew of the archpriest was Norbert Pressac de la Chagnaye, a national hero who was both vicar of the archpriesthood of Mazières and parish priest of Saint-Gaudent near Civray, and who planted the first tree of liberty in France on 10 May 1790. His heir, Colonel Wieme, welcomed guests to Mazières (including Monsignor Rozier, Bishop of Poitiers, President Mitterrand and ministers Ségolène Royal and Jacques Lang) for the bicentenary on 21 March 1989.
(Excerpt from the book "Mazières-sur-Béronne au 20ème siècle" by Roger Tirand).