Bastide de Talmont-sur-Gironde et son église Sainte-Radegonde

Talmont-sur-Gironde

On a limestone promontory battered by the Gironde estuary, Talmont is a walled town founded in 1284 by Edward I of England, Duke of Aquitaine, who had it fortified on a grid plan comparable to that of the bastides then springing up all over the South-West; tradition has it that he took his inspiration from Winchelsea, a stronghold in Sussex. The streets cross at right angles between deliberately low houses, with white facades and blue shutters, overrun with hollyhocks. At the tip, the church of Sainte-Radegonde, 12th-century Romanesque, overhangs the waves in the middle of a seaside cemetery; a storm carried away a section of cliff and the narthex that extended the church. A stopping place for pilgrims to Compostela, bitterly fought over between French and English and then between Catholics and Huguenots, Talmont is today one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France.

The church of Sainte-Radegonde. Set at the very tip of a limestone promontory, its feet in the Gironde estuary, the church of Sainte-Radegonde at Talmont is one of the most celebrated images of the Saintonge — and, art historians say, the archetype of the Saintonge Romanesque. It was built between 1140 and 1170 by the Benedictine monks of Saint-Jean-d'Angély, in a spot that was anything but ordinary: here, pilgrims to Compostela following the Saintonge route found a sanctuary at the water's edge before crossing the widest estuary in Europe to continue towards Galicia. The dedication itself is a story: Radegund (c. 520–587), a princess of Thuringia captured as a child, who became the wife of King Clothar, fled the court to become a nun and to found a monastery in Poitiers, where she cared for the poor and the sick — a queen turned servant, whose cult accompanied the pilgrimage roads. The sea, which makes the beauty of the place, is also its threat: part of the nave collapsed into the waves at the end of the 14th century, replaced by the present Gothic facade, and the cliff has had to be shored up several times to keep the church from joining the waves. One visits the sober, luminous interior, the carved apse on the seaward side, then the little seaside cemetery planted with hollyhocks, before walking round the ramparts of the white village. At sunset, when the estuary catches fire, one understands why this pilgrims' sanctuary has never ceased to draw travellers.

Getting there : Village freely accessible. Royan Atlantique tourist office, Talmont branch. No market documented in the sources consulted. Village of Talmont-sur-Gironde (Plus Beaux Villages de France), Promenade des Remparts; parking compulsory in the pay car parks at the entrance to the village, then access on foot. Entry to the church free or by donation depending on the season.

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

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