Bastide de Villeneuve-sur-Lot et sa chapelle du Bout-du-Pont

Villeneuve-sur-Lot

Villeneuve-sur-Lot, Villeneuve-d'Agen until 1875, is the largest bastide of the Agenais and one of the few to straddle a river. On a site frequented since Antiquity, near the monastery of Eysses and the castrum of Pujols destroyed during the Albigensian Crusade, Alphonse of Poitiers founded between 1254 and 1264, with the monks of Eysses, a new town endowed with a charter of customs in 46 articles. A bold bridge, undertaken between 1282 and 1289 with the agreement of Edward I, linked the regular rectangle of the right bank to the suburb on the left bank. Taken in 1337 by the Constable de Brienne, holding out against Queen Margot in 1585, the town lost its ramparts after the Fronde. There remain the Place des Cornières, the Porte de Paris and the Porte de Pujols, nearly forty metres high, the Pont des Cieutats, the church of Saint-Étienne and the Bout-du-Pont chapel with its Virgin of legend.

The chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-et-de-Toute-Joie. Clinging to the head of the Pont des Cieutats, the old bridge of the bastide of Villeneuve-sur-Lot built from 1282 to 1289, this little chapel was born of a tale of a river miracle. Tradition relates that in the 13th century three boats coming down the Lot suddenly found themselves held fast level with the bridge, for no apparent reason; a boatman dived in and brought up from the riverbed a statuette of a Black Madonna. As soon as the figure was set on board, the flotilla moved off again, and a chapel was raised at the entrance to the bridge to shelter the find — hence its foundation, traditionally fixed at 1289. It first served as the chapel of the fortified work that defended the bridgehead, then crowned by three towers. The flood and storm of 1600 carried away two arches and the chapel itself, later rebuilt with materials from the bridge, before 1618 according to some sources or around 1643 according to others; in 1657 the wooden ceiling was raised and the small bell-turret completed, the walls were reworked in 1825 and the facade received its neo-Gothic decoration in 1865. For a long time the boatmen saluted the Black Madonna by raising their oars as they passed beneath the arches. The chapel, also known as Notre-Dame-du-Bout-du-Pont, has been registered as a monument historique since 20 June 1950.

Wikipédia — Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-et-de-Toute-Joie ↗

Getting there : Free access to the bastide, the gates and the Pont Vieux. Markets on Tuesdays and Saturdays on the Place Lafayette and an organic market on Wednesdays under the market hall of the Place d'Aquitaine, according to the Fédération des Bastides; Grand Villeneuvois tourist office (tourisme.villeneuve-valleedulot.com). At 11 rue des Cieutats, at the end of the Pont des Cieutats (the "Vieux Pont"), on the right bank of the Lot, a few minutes' walk from the centre of the bastide of Villeneuve-sur-Lot. Coordinates approximate to within a few dozen metres (street address, not a GPS reading). Visible at all times from the bridge and the quays.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound