Église Saint-Pierre de Collonges-la-Rouge

Collonges-la-Rouge

Everything is red in Collonges — the towers, the turreted houses, the lanes — except the church tympanum, carved from a pale limestone that stands out against the dark sandstone. Sculpted in the 12th century by stonemasons from Toulouse, it shows Christ rising beneath the gaze of the Virgin: Ascension or return at the end of time, the specialists still debate the point. Its story reads like a novel. During the Wars of Religion, the inhabitants dismantled the tympanum stone by stone and sealed it into the west gable to save it from destruction; it only emerged from its hiding place in 1923–1924. Local tradition adds a rare episode: the Protestant lord of Vassinhac is said to have allowed the two faiths to worship under the same roof, the Catholics in the nave, the Protestants in the chapel of Saint-Jacques. That dedication is no accident: the village, a former priory dependent on Charroux, served as a halt for pilgrims coming down from the Limousin towards Rocamadour and Compostela, and one would search in vain for a finer stopping place. The church keeps its enigmas too: a crypt never found, as at Uzerche, and a mysterious hollow tower of the 16th century. At the start of the Hundred Years' War, the lord Barthélemy de Vassinhac had already flanked the building with a fortified tower against the roving mercenary bands known as routiers; a second followed two centuries later. And so, in a single building, one visits a thousand years of fervour and fear.

Getting there : In the heart of the village of Collonges-la-Rouge, free admission to the church; paying car parks at the entrance to the village (site very busy in summer). Coordinates given for the church itself.

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

Ambient sound