Poitou-Charentes myths, legends and history - Devil's Bridge

Pont Binot or Devil's bridge, Charente

Poitou-Charentes myths, legends and history

Pont Binot, or Devil’s Bridge 

I hope you are enjoying reading about the myths, legends and history of the Poitou-Charentes at least as much as I am enjoying revisiting some of my favourite places and stories. Last week it was the wells of hell, so it seemed appropriate to recount the tale of the Devil’s bridge this week. I will add links at the end to the other posts in this series, in case you have missed any.

 

Not far from Confolens in the Charente department, there is a stone bridge crossing the river Issoire that has featured a few times on our cycling adventures. I do have a thing for bridges and with its pale stonework glowing in the golden sunshine, and the river peacefully flowing beneath the arches, we’ve always paused to take a photo or two here. What I didn’t know until stumbling upon a podcast recently was that there has been river crossing here since Roman times and that this pretty bridge has long been known as Devil’s Bridge.

 

According to the legend about Pont Binot, the Devil lived a peaceful life beside the Issoire river for many years, until the locals began building a bridge. The clattering of carriage wheels over cobbles disturbed his tranquillity so much, he took action. Every evening, he hurtled across their bridge in his cart pulled by enormous beasts, destroying the construction work as their stones tumbled into the river. The villagers prayed to God and protested to the Devil, but he wouldn’t budge.

The majestic 43-metre-high bell tower in Lesterps,
dating from the 11th century

 

 

One day, someone had the idea to use stones from an ancient, ruined abbey, ten kilometres away in Lesterps, reasoning that consecrated stones that had been blessed many times over the years might just stand up to the Devil. The stones were transported by the villagers, a new bridge was built and when it was finished, it was blessed once more, just for good measure. During a wild and stormy night, the Devil tried to demolish the bridge again, but this time to no avail. Realising he had been defeated by a more powerful force, he gave up and now sits for all eternity on the banks of the Issoire, transformed into a large rock with a rounded back (that is just about visible at the bottom left of the photo).

The large rock said to be the devil

 

While it is true that there are many similar stories to this, about different bridges in different locations in France, there is something special about this almost hidden bridge that I think makes it worthy of a legend. Although I do have to acknowledge that as this current bridge only dates from the nineteenth century, maybe the Devil did eventually get his revenge on the original bridge. I guess we will never know.

 

A stone’s throw from the Devil’s bridge is the tourist site of Coriobona. Built by the Gaulois d’Esse Association, it is a reconstruction of the buildings and objects of a life-size, small, fortified Gaulois settlement, that enables visitors to discover the history of the Lémovices, a Gallic people from the Limousin who date back over two thousand years. Sadly, much as I love associations like this who bring history to life, we have not yet had the opportunity to visit. Its opening times are rather limited and seem to clash with my work at the Château de Javarzay. 

Map of France showing Roman towns 

As for the Romans, who invaded the lands of the Gaul’s, giving rise to the Gallo-Roman period of French history, we live within a triangle of Poitiers (Limonum) to the north, Saintes (Mediolanum Santonum) to the southwest and Limoges (Augustoritum) to the southeast. The Romans built roads connecting these towns to each other and onto Lyon (Lugdunum) in the east, on the Voie d’Agrippa. It is therefore no surprise that they were the first to create a river crossing at this site and that we don’t have to go too far from home to find vestiges of Roman life in the Poitou-Charentes. In fact, long before the Renaissance château was built at Javarzay, it was the site of a Gallo-Roman farm, called Gavarciacum, the domain that belonged to Gavarcus – which is where the name Javarzay originates from. 

 

Roman amphitheatre Saint-Cybardeaux, Charente

Our travels by bike this year, although more limited than previous years, have still taken us to huge amphitheatres, the remains of villas and an impressive underground aqueduct that supplied water to Saintes. 

Roman underground aqueduct, Charente-Maritime

To discover more about Roman life in our area, I can recommend a visit to the fascinating Ruaranum museum in Rom. Situated in what is now a small rural village of a few hundred inhabitants, it was once a major stopover town and home to over four thousand people, as well as commerces, trades and the all-important Roman baths – part of which can still be seen. This gem of a museum houses an array of artifacts found during local archaeological digs, as well as maps and explanations of life in the Roman empire and for a small village, was a huge surprise. There are also arial photographs showing traces of the Roman buildings that can still be seen in the farmland today, revealing just how large and important Rom or Ruaranum was.

Links to previous posts: 

 

Le puits d’enfer 

La Jungle 

La Dame de Chambrille 

Jean-François Cail 

La fée Mélusine 

The cries through the fog 

Whooping cough, headdresses and heartthrobs 

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas however and wherever you celebrate. Without Mini, ours will be different this year, plus Ed has just moved flats, so Christmas preparations were overtaken by packing, lists and flat-pack furniture building this week, but we will be spending Christmas Day together, in his new flat, enjoying family time and simple, homemade food (so long as the new oven arrives and I can work out how to use it). Wish me luck!

Advent postcards, Cenon-sur-Vienne

 

Advent postcard, Cenon-sur-Vienne

Advent day twelve

Today’s cycling advent-ures postcard is from just outside the village of Cenon-sur-Vienne, at the confluence of the mighty Vienne and the river Clain, whose valley we had been cycling through north of Poitiers last weekend. 

 

It is hardly surprising I’ve found a watery theme to today’s post, as the rain continues to pour down there is little else on my mind. In the space of two months, we’ve gone from a worryingly low water table that necessitated water restrictions coming into place on 13^th October, to most of the west of France now a soggy mess. Drainage ditches at the edge of roads are flowing like rivers, fields have become lakes as the water tries in vain to drain into the ditches, and the rainwater drains in the village are gurgling and bubbling high like a water feature fountain. 28% of French departments now have water tables full to a very high level and only 11% are showing as very low. How can a situation swing so drastically, in such a short space of time? The Jet Stream. It seems to have shifted and got itself stuck further south than usual, and the resulting low pressure over the Atlantic is the cause for our seemingly endless rain.

 

We struck lucky three times on Sunday morning. Firstly, the rain didn’t start until we were back at the car after a 36km bike ride and a picnic lunch with views of the Château de Dissay, plus we had two lucky discoveries on the bike ride, both just outside the small Vienne town of Cenon-sur-Vienne.

 

The first thing we stumbled upon that put a smile on my face was the archaeological site of Vieux-Poitiers (Old Poitiers), on the road between Naintré and Cenon. Here, where the Roman town of Briva once stood, a ruined tower is all that remains from an amphitheatre that once held ten thousand people. The fact that it is also on the Chemins de Saint-Jacques pilgrimage route, just made me fall in love even more. Situated on a triangle of land that is protected on two sides by the two rivers, that also offered fishing and trade routes, you can see why this was an important position two thousand years ago.

 

Our route continued up the triangle to stand at the confluence of the Clain and the Vienne rivers. It was rather appropriate to find ourselves here as we finished our twelve months of mini-cycling adventures to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. In 1998, our main criteria for our wedding venue was that it had to be on the river Thames. We were both born by the Thames, worked in London, and often met for lunchtime walks along the river and decided upon Henley-on Thames for our wedding. It was a special feeling at having achieved our 25^th anniversary challenge, where we have managed twenty-three nights away this year and cycled 1864 kilometres, and standing by these rivers, inspiration struck for another cycling adventure for 2024.

Advent postcards, Aulnay Charente-Maritime

 

Advent postcards, Aulnay, Charente-Maritime

Advent day eight

The jet stream has once again turned on us, bringing wild, wet and windy weather this weekend. We did have exciting cycling plans, but for the moment, it looks like we’ll have to take a rain check in the morning – keep your fingers crossed please. At least I can look back on our summer fun and remember that wonderful feeling of the heat of the sun on my skin.

 

Aulnay, in the Charente-Maritime has been an important stop for pilgrims on the Chemins de Saint Jacques de Compostelle for hundreds of years and a special place for us since our first St Jean d’Angeley 100km-day cycle route in 2017. There is something quite magical about reaching Aulnay and the last twenty kilometres of the day.

 

This year Aulnay has featured twice on our cycling calendar. As well as being our last cake-break and offering cool shady grass to lay down on, with a view of the impressive church spire, on our 100km a day, it was also a cycle ride destination to explore it more on a Terra Aventura adventure. This, once again, took us to hidden places we’ve missed, and pointed out so much more details than we’d noticed despite many years of cycling here.

 

The church of St Pierre dates from the 12^th Century and is a beauty. The spire draws you in from many kilometres out, and once you stand underneath the enormous carvings on the arched doorways, there is so much to see, one visit isn’t enough to appreciate it all.

 

I can’t wait to return to Aulnay next year, celebrating not only turning 53 but ten years of birthday 100kms-in-a day-bike rides.  

Advent postcards, Rom Deux-Sèvres

Advent postcards, Rom, Deux-Sèvres

Advent day seven

Today for our cycling advent-ures postcard we are staying in our home department of the Deux-Sèvres and visiting the village of Rom. This is one of the most interesting villages we have revisited this year, as there was so much more to discover than we’d imagined. We had previously visited the cemetery where there are thirty Commonwealth War graves, mostly RAF Special Air Servicemen who lost their lives on 7^th July 1944 during Operation Bulbasket. It is a sobering and moving place to visit and the RAF lay blue wreaths in September every year in remembrance.

 

Working in a museum, I decided that this year I needed to visit some of the other tourist sites locally, so when our visitors ask for information on things to see, I can do more than hand out a leaflet. We started our visit at the church, with its interesting stone tombs and painted chapels, but it was the Rauranum museum next door that we had really come to see, and it turned out to be the star of the visit.

 

Rom might be just a small rural village now, but two thousand years ago it was a major stage post along the Roman road that ran from Poitiers to Saintes. Rauranum was a vibrant place, home to around four thousand people and with visitors from all over Europe and north Africa. It was equipped with all the facilities you’d expect from an important Roman town and the remains of the stables and baths can be seen as you wander around the village. We visited the museum on a Sunday afternoon and were lucky enough to have it to ourselves. It might not be the biggest museum in France, but there a vast display of the artifacts found locally, and we also learned so much about the Roman history in the area. It is certainly somewhere I can now enthusiastically recommend to local tourists.