Chapelle et Fontaine Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher

Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher

In the 7th century, a hermit named Antoine is said to have withdrawn to a cave hollowed out of the living rock, in the heart of a Touraine wood. His reputation for holiness drew disciples, then pilgrims, to the point that the village which grew up around his hermitage took his name. A chapel was built against the rock face, directly linked to the spring that rises at its foot: a fountain renowned for centuries for soothing skin complaints. Oral tradition credits this water with a purifying power, in keeping with the role attributed to the holy hermit, protector of bodies as of souls. A curious local legend held that the fountain was "forbidden to women", echoing the rigorous asceticism the holy man imposed on himself and his wish to preserve the purity of the place — a prohibition whose true age is unknown and which no doubt belongs more to folklore than to any attested practice. In 1978, the discovery of two 6th-century Merovingian sarcophagi, now kept in the chapel, confirmed the antiquity of the site as a favoured place of burial. Restored in 1842 and again in 1969, the little troglodyte chapel still houses the hermit's recumbent effigy near the altar, while the fountain flows a few steps away, in a setting that has stayed rural, far from the great Breton pilgrimage circuits.

Getting there : 15 km north of Tours, slightly apart from the village; car park nearby, short walk to the cave chapel and the fountain.

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

Ambient sound