Chavenat

Chavenat is a municipality with 220 inhabitants (as of 1 January 2011 ) in the south of the western French département Charente in the Poitou -Charentes.

Location

Chavenat lies at an altitude of about 165 meters above sea level. inst about 25 km ( driving distance ) south of Angouleme in the ancient cultural landscape of the Angoumois and the Charente.

Demographics

In the first half of the 19th century, the church had always around 500 inhabitants; due to the phylloxera crisis in the wine and the mechanization of agriculture, the population then dropped continuously from the lows of the past decades.

Economy

The residents of the community 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 industry plays any role. Revenue from tourism, especially the rental of apartments ( gîtes ), while since the 1960s play a not unimportant role in the revenue of the municipal treasury.

History

The local church is first mentioned in the year 973.

Attractions

• The unadorned and unarticulated apse of the parish church of Chavenat ( Église Saint- Cybard ) and the nave with its small windows date from the 11th century. The designed after a triumphal arch scheme facade with its well-preserved console frieze below the pediment on the other hand is a work of the 12th century. The crossing tower and accompanying him stair tower were rebuilt in the 19th century. The church is recognized as a monument historique since 1996.

Console frieze on the facade

• The approximately two kilometers southeast of the Domaine de Chénard (45 ° 26 ' 36 "N, 0 ° 11' 17 " O45.4433333333330.18805555555556 ) is a two-storey building complex pflanzenumrankter with a two-tower historicizing entrance from the first quarter of the 19th century. The building, together with its scale in the 1920s garden is privately owned and is recognized as a monument historique since 1992.