Saturday 17 October 2020

The Church at Moeze

The church at Moëze in the Charente-Maritime is a building of two distinct parts. The belfry is Gothic, but the rest of the church it was once attached to was destroyed in the Wars of Religion. It was a Catholic church, and the population of Moëze was strongly for Protestantism.

The church at Moeze, Charente-Maritime, France. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.


The church was completely ruined during the Wars of Religion in the 16th century. Of this original building, only the bell tower remains. Judging by its architecture, the bell tower seems to belong to the 14th century and would have been constructed by the English. It consists of a square shaft with buttresses at the corners surmounted by triangular pediments and hooks. An eight-sided stone spire dominates it. It has hooks on the edges and a series of triangles on the openings. Four pointed belfries intersect the four corners. Four others similar to the first intersect the curve at the base of the spire on each side. At the bottom, an ogival border simulates a window. The spire was used to guide sailors to the entrance of the port of the island of Aix.


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4 comments:

chm said...

Given the size of the belltower, the original church must have been much bigger than the present one.

Katie Zeller said...

I love going into the old churches.... We were nosing around one when we met the current priest. He, like many for small villages, tends to many parishes. He said he schedules services based on weather and whether or not the church is heated lol

Susan said...

I've never heard of services scheduled like that! Usually it's a rota, with each church done in turn.

Susan said...

Yes I think that is likely.

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