Les Aubuges from Sainte Soline

(S/E) Leave the car park and take the path that runs alongside the lake. A wind turbine is used to maintain the water level in the fish farming area.
The path continues along the River Dive, offering a view of the wash house at the foot of the bridge over which the D15 road passes. Join Rue de la Dive (D15). Turn right and follow the road with care.

Cross Rue de la Dive carefully and turn left into Rue de l’Église. Walk past Sainte-Soline Church (see the ‘During the walk’ section).
You’ll see a dovecote at Place de l’Église. Whilst walking through Sainte-Soline, you’ll also see a Hosanière Cross (1884) at the junction at the end of Rue de l’Église, a well and a few medieval houses.

Carry on straight ahead, and at the end of Rue de l’Église, turn left into Rue des Gasses. Pass Impasse des Gasses on your left and continue to the right.
When you reach the square farmstead of Les Îles – a remarkable complex of buildings forming three sides of a generously proportioned layout – turn right.

(1) At the next junction, turn right again into Rue du Logis. Before reaching Rue des Granges (the D55 road), you’ll see an old house. Turn right into Rue des Granges and drive along it with care.
Walk through the village, admiring some of the houses with their vaulted entrance porches and finely carved corner stones.

When you reach the D15 road (Rue d’Aunis), walk about a hundred metres to the left and back to explore the ruins of the old castle.
On your return, continue to the left along Rue de la Dive until you reach the junction with ‘Chemin des Près Brain’, almost directly opposite Rue de l’Église.

(2) Turn left onto the track known as Chemin des Prés Brain. This track becomes a farm track once you pass the last houses.
The track runs to the right, some distance away, alongside a branch of the River Dive and then the Bignon, an intermittent stream. It is lined with hedges and trees. Continue straight on along this track until you reach a small road.
Turn right onto this road and follow it carefully for less than a hundred metres.

Note: the Gué du Rez d’Abran is situated on this small road less than two hundred metres further on. The Gué du Rez d’Abran sluice is situated on the Bignon and helps to regulate the water in the irrigated and drained plain.

Turn left onto a farm track. The track runs alongside the intermittent stream known as the Bignon on the right-hand side for a short distance. The track is lined with hedges and trees.

(3) At the next crossroads, turn right onto a track. Continue straight on until you reach a small road.

(4) Turn right onto a farm track. As you cross the small bridge over the Bignon, the feudal motte of La Douve Ronde lies hidden 200 metres to the right, in the Petites Aubuges meadow.
The track passes close to the ruins of the Grandes Aubuges Convent on the right-hand side before climbing slightly. Continue straight on until you reach the Moulin à Vent promontory.

(5) Turn right and take a ridge path offering lovely views. This path heads north and joins a small road. Turn left onto it.
Cross the River Dive (a wetland area with several leats) to reach the hamlet known as Le Moulin de Germain, a building on your right.

(6) After crossing the Dive, turn right onto a farm track that runs alongside an intermittent stream.
Carry on until the farm track joins a small road. Turn left and follow the small road carefully for just over a hundred metres.

(7) Turn right onto a farm track. Shortly afterwards, turn right again onto a tarmac farm track which heads straight towards the hamlet of Champrimbault after rounding a copse.
At the end of the farm track, turn left onto a small road that serves the hamlet.

(8) Immediately after the buildings at Champrimbault, turn right onto a grassy track which goes round the hamlet before rejoining the small road. Carry on straight ahead towards the south-east.
Shortly afterwards, the road reaches a crossroads where four roads meet. Cross the road carefully and continue straight ahead to the hamlet of Moulin Petit.

(9) Turn left onto a small road leading to the neighbouring hamlet of “Les Maisons”.
Before reaching Les Maisons, carry on straight ahead along a farm track with grass in the middle, which runs alongside the River Dive towards Sainte-Soline.

The track eventually runs alongside the Sainte-Soline cemetery before joining a small road which immediately leads onto the D15. At the entrance to the cemetery, Merovingian and Carolingian tombs stand alongside the graves of members of the Compagnons du Devoir; the tools of the butcher and the bricklayer are well represented.
Turn right onto the D15 and, about twenty metres further on, turn right again towards the lake.
Head for the car park, which marks the end of this walk (S/E).

The car park is situated at the Sainte Soline lake, south of the village.

This walk, over varied and sometimes damp terrain, requires suitable footwear.

This route is signposted as it follows the “Les Aubuges” route published by the Deux-Sèvres Departmental Hiking Committee, available on the Deux-Sèvres Department’s hiking website http://randoendeuxsevres.fr/index.php. The markings are blue, in the form of a small white symbol on a blue background. In addition, it is advisable to follow the directions in the route description and on the map, whilst also paying attention to the landscape.

Alternate routes
(4) Continuing south along the farm track, after about 700 metres you will come to the Douve des Chateliers, a feudal motte which was the site of a wooden castle during the Merovingian period.

(6) You can visit the 14th-century Château de Germain, situated 400 metres to the south-west (private residence).

Walk undertaken by the author on 11 May 2018

Sainte-Soline
Sainte-Soline is a commune situated in the south of the Deux-Sèvres department, in the heart of the Huguenot region that characterises the Bas Poitou. Numerous family cemeteries are scattered throughout this region

The Church of Sainte-Soline
The Church of Sainte-Soline is one of the major churches of the Pays Mellois. Having lost its chevet, it dominates the square with its bell-tower porch. It stands at the heart of an ancient setting, very close to the Gallo-Roman road that linked Poitiers to Saintes.
Now a parish church, in the 12th century it was a priory dependent on the Abbey of Saint-Maixent. Later records refer to the church as belonging to the Augustinian Abbey of Saint-Séverin-sur-Boutonne.
The Church of Sainte-Soline is the only parish church dedicated to this saint in the Diocese of Poitiers. The life of Saint Soline began on the banks of the River Dive in the 1st century; she is said to have been martyred in Chartres. Her remains are said to have been buried there in the Church of Saint-Père.
The church was listed as a Historic Monument in 1907 for its Romanesque features.
The church has lost its sanctuary, which was probably originally an apse with a straight bay and was destroyed during the Hundred Years’ War (14th and 15th centuries). The church, along with the village, was the target of arson in 1348, carried out by a man named Moreau Audouin, a mercenary in the pay of the English garrisoned at Lusignan Castle. Was it at this time that the church lost its transept and chancel? Traces of this loss can be seen in the current flat chevet. The vaults, covered with slate slabs, withstood the fire. The town hall, a former vicarage, was rebuilt in 1861 on the site of the chancel, of which no remains are left.
The west façade, rebuilt in the 18th century, was originally a tripartite façade; the former blind arcades can still be discerned in the stonework. The bell-tower porch was rebuilt in the 13th century, a type of bell tower also found at the church in Clussais-la-Pommeraie.
Inside the building, there is a tripartite nave, comprising a central nave and two side aisles. What is noteworthy here is the narrowness of these two side aisles, which undoubtedly served more as structural supports than as passageways.
The sculpture at Sainte-Soline does not follow in the tradition of the Melle workshops, but constitutes a distinct project in its own right. This is evident as soon as one enters, with the capital adorned with two busts (a man and a woman), unique in the sculpture of the Mellois region. Also worth noting is the care taken with the bases of the columns, one of the church’s distinctive features. Also worth noting is the curious holy water font near the high altar. It depicts a three-headed figure, with three faces sharing four eyes – a feature unique to the region.

Also worth seeing:
- the washhouse
- the dovecote,
- the Hosanna cross,
- the well and medieval houses,
- the castle ruins.

During the walk, see:
- the lake and its windmill, which helps maintain the water level in the fish-farming area
- the wetlands of the Dive and the Bignon
- the motte mounds of the Douve Ronde and the Douve des Châteliers – a feudal motte, the site of a wooden castle from the Merovingian period; 700 metres south of the route – and Champrimbault
- the sites of windmills and watermills
- the old mill and Germain Castle
The seigneury of Germain belonged, from the early Middle Ages, to Jean de Vezançay and his descendants from the 14th to the late 16th century. Acquired by the Le Coq family in the 17th century, it remained in their possession until the mid-18th century, being sold in 1749 to the widow of Louis Frotier de la Coste Messelière, then in 1818 to Pierre Paul Jean Roy de l’Isle and in 1846 to Pierre Louis Charles Cuvillier de Champoyau. The square keep and the round tower may date from the 14th and/or 15th centuries; these two towers were subsequently linked by two L-shaped wings, connected by a stair tower; these residential quarters may date from the 16th century, as evidenced by the two galleries, the mullioned windows and the fireplaces. Between 1768 and 1798, restoration and drainage works were carried out; in the third quarter of the 19th century, the buildings were maintained. They were owned by several different owners in the third quarter of the 20th century
- the village of Chaprimbault
Here you can discover an esplanade, a pond and a well, a pump, the remains of an ancient motte and a Protestant cemetery.
- various viewpoints
- Merovingian and Carolingian tombs, and those of the Compagnons du Devoir (at the Sainte Soline cemetery at the end of the route).

The Montioux burial mound (off the route, 2 km east of Sainte Soline via the D55)
The Montioux or Montiou Tumulus is a complex comprising two tumuli with dolmen chambers. The tumulus originally covered four chambers, two of which have been destroyed; it is one of the rare examples of a tumulus with multiple dolmens featuring long parallel passageways, of the Atlantic type; this megalithic complex is linked to the tumuli at Bougon, 16 km away, and at Limalonges, 18 km away. The tumulus dates from the 4th millennium, the Middle Neolithic period.
Following the excavations, numerous offerings of various kinds were discovered (flint arrowheads, axes and knife blades, pottery shards, and bones).
For further information, please refer to this document