Berneuil (Charente)

Berneuil is a municipality with 323 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2011 ) in the Charente region of France in the Poitou -Charentes.

Location

Berneuil is located about 45 km ( driving distance ) southeast of Cognac and Angoulême in south-west of the old cultural landscape of the Angoumois at an altitude of about 130 meters above sea level. inst. flow through the village, the two river Beau and Maury.

Demographics

In the first half of the 19th century, the community had mostly about 1,000 inhabitants. As a result of the phylloxera crisis in the wine and the mechanization of agriculture, the population has since declined.

Economy

The inhabitants of Berneuil lived for centuries of agriculture; the bottoms of the community belong to the Bons Bois of the vineyard Cognac, but the paragraphs in expensive wine fires in recent decades tended to shrink, so that the wine does not dominant role. Revenue from tourism, especially the rental of apartments ( gîtes ), since the 1960s play a not unimportant role in the revenue of the municipal treasury.

History

The Romanesque church points to an existing already in the Middle Ages site. Due to the presence of a transept with two lateral apses and a separate entrance as well as the unusually rich Baudekors it seems to have been a former priory.

Attractions

• The Romanesque parish church ( Église Notre -Dame) was built in the 12th century. The architectural design of the western façade corresponds to the type charenteser: The Portal Zone is designed for a triumphal arch scheme with two lateral portals Blend; is over a console Fries a five-part series of blind arcades with profiled pilasters and columns set; a stone roof with shingle imitations forms the transition to unadorned pediment with a late Gothic niche, in which there was formerly perhaps a statue of Mary. Exceptional is the decorative design will, which can be seen in almost every component: In the two tympana of the lateral portals were located Blend figures, as in the spandrels between the ( bogus) portals. The outer overlay sheets of Archivolts were decorated with a serrated rod and even the face of the console frieze was profiled. Already in the 14th or 15th century the building was mighty buttresses at the corners of the facade and on the sides; while the arcade arches were partially overlapped. The stone roofs can also be found on the buttresses, so that it can be assumed that the stone roof transition has been added to the tympanum during this period. The stocky -looking crossing tower is divided by simple pillars in rectangular fields. Querhausapsiden and central apse are divided by half-columns templates; the central apse has a circumferential console frieze, the Querhausapsiden feature arched friezes as the top financial statements. The single nave of the church has a pointed barrel vault; in the crossing there is a aufruhende on pendentives dome. The semicircle of the apse is divided by pre- blinded arcades and arched by a dome. Clearly visible is the caused by the vault thrust drifting apart of the exterior walls along with their half-columns templates that's necessary stabilization thereof made ​​by thick buttresses. At the same time the outer walls were raised and new vault It probably confiscated. The church building is recognized as a monument historique since 1914.
• Some windmill stumps, barns etc. of the place are recognized as worthy of protection.