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This priory, founded at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries, was part of the powerful Chaise-Dieu abbey in Auvergne. Fully restored in the 1990s, it is one of the most enigmatic Romanesque monuments in Saintonge. The church, of which the apse remains, is designed on an exceptional octagonal plan.

Also worth seeing: the chapter house with its poly-lobed arches and beautiful 13th-century ribbed windows, the cellar, the vast refectory with its mural paintings and, upstairs, the monks’ dormitories decorated with mural paintings. Thr church is also decorated with contemporary stained-glass windows by Richard Texier and Father Kim En Joong.

A medieval garden features plant species cultivated in France between the 9th and 14th centuries.

The abbey’s contemporary art centre offers a year-round dialogue between the Romanesque monument and today’s artists. Exhibitions every two months from February to November.