The Local Area.

A serious tribute to the Gallo-Roman history of la Vienne

By any standards the façade of the Church of St Nicolas at Civray is an astonishing piece of craftsmanship.

It is certainly sufficiently remarkable to deserve the attention of those of us who are not architectural

historians and who baulk at the endless descriptions of local churches in many guidebooks. It is even more

mind-boggling that this monument was erected in a town (village?) which even today has hardly more than 2,500 inhabitants.

                                                                                                   The slated roof of Lusignan church

                                                                                                   is characteristic of the area.

Fields and forest.

Civray is one of the largest of several small towns south of Poitiers. In this district the great Poitou plain continues ever onwards. In all its rolling acres stretch down the Département from the northern boundary to the south where a transition starts into what will become the chalk downs of Charente - a total distance of some 80 miles. But perhaps the change does begin to happen at the midway point when one starts finding more frequent areas of scrub and forest breaking up

the great expanses.

Livestock and accessible villages.

Livestock becomes more in evidence too as one makes ones' way through this area. There are a number

of small towns generally along the major roads (and the motorway) that radiate from Poitiers on their way

to Limoges, Angouleme and Bordeaux. They are mostly by-passed now and have largely reclaimed the

rural tranquillity that never left the many villages and hamlets which sit, easily accessible, between the trunk routes.

             L'Isle Jourdain                                                                           Couhé's main street once                                                                                                                carried the traffic to Angouleme

Racing cars among the meadows.

To the east the middle reaches of the Vienne wind northwards from Availles-Limouzine to Lussac-les-Châteaux and forms the somewhat nebulous boundary with our area 'Chauvigny and East Vienne'. This is the most lovely section of the river's valley in the county that bears its name. Midway along it, somewhat incongruously in the midst of all this rolling countryside, one finds a Racing Car Circuit!