Chapelle Saint-Jean-d'Apileur

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

This small chapel is located 4.2 km from the village and 300 m to the north of the road. Its construction, although placed in the 16th century by Guillotin de Corson and Baneat, appears to date back to a much earlier period, probably to the 13th or early 14th century. This hypothesis results from surveys carried out in April 1986 on the interior walls of the chapel. These surveys made it possible to detect on almost all the walls of the building (nave, choir, transept) significant traces of wall paintings created most probably in the early 15th century. The architecture of the building is quite plain; it takes the form of a Latin cross whose main dimensions are 18.90 m for the nave and 14.68 m for the total length of the transepts. The chapel has three altars, two of which are ancient granite tables supported by crude consoles. The retable of the high altar is of the tabernacle retable type with small twisted columns, in polychrome wood; its date of construction goes back to the first half of the 17th century. The chapel is lit by six openings, the stained-glass windows of which have now disappeared and been replaced by plain glass. However, it should be noted the excellent quality of the Gothic-decorated mullions of three of these openings. The chapel is surrounded by an old cemetery converted into copse (superstructure of the enclosure wall still apparent).