Église Notre-Dame de Monthérault

About

The church of Notre-Dame de Monthérault is a pre-Romanesque and primitive Romanesque church located in Trizay, Charente-Maritime. Presumably founded in the 10th or 11th century, it was only in the 13th century that a Beata Maria church of Monte Ayraudi was mentioned in the seigneurial registers. It is small in size, adapted to a predominantly rural population, and has many similarities with the church of Sainte-Radegonde, a few kilometres away, as well as with the church of Dercie, near Royan.

Left abandoned since 1826 — the year of Monthérault's attachment to its neighbour, Trizay —, badly damaged by storm Martin in 1999, which deprived it of its bell tower, it was in an advanced state of disrepair in the early 2000s. A large-scale restoration campaign — if not partial reconstruction — was carried out from 2011 to 2013, allowing the inextremis preservation of this unknown building.