Add to favorites
Le 12th January 2022
Located a few kilometers south of the episcopal city of Angoulême, the Notre-Dame de La Couronne abbey is an exceptional ensemble, made up of the remains of the old abbey church and convent buildings.
Although today in ruins, the abbey remains one of the most interesting in the region.
From the twelfth century
Built by "the happy" Lambert, on land forming an island called "la coronelle", the abbey housed a community of monks, adopting the rule of the regular canons of Saint-Augustin. Its wealth and prosperity until the 1345th century resulted in numerous embellishments and extensions to the taste of the Romanesque and then Gothic periods. The troubles caused by the Hundred Years War (XNUMX the abbey was looted), religious wars and then in the XNUMXth century (which became a stone quarry) were fatal to it.
At the beginning of the XVII th century
The abbey, which has only eight monks left, is united with the order of the Jesuits; it was then placed under the obedience of the congregation of Sainte-Geneviève in 1644. In the XVIIIe century, a last campaign of works transformed the conventual buildings. Abbot Louis de Bompar (1750-1773) notably carried out large-scale works between 1756 and 1760 with the development of the main courtyard.
Since 1904
Sold as national property after the Revolution, the remains of the abbey church were used as a quarry until their classification as Historic Monuments in 1904. This protection was extended to the entire site in 1999.
Extend the discovery of the abbey by visiting the sites of La Couronne, such as
- the Romanesque church of 11e-12e century
- the La Courade mill, a former paper mill,
- the chateau de l'Oisellerie
- a school labeled "Heritage of the XXe century" for its Art Deco architecture by architect Roger Baleix
- a public garden designed by Eugène Bureau
