Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The hermit Amand settled about 500 on a rocky promontory in Saint-Junien, near the gués de la Vienne and la Glane. The bishop of Limoges, Rorice I, built an oratory and a cell there. After the death of Amand, his tomb was rediscovered in 1083 by Abbé Hugues de Cluny, leading to the construction of a parish church dedicated to Saint-Amand, consecrated in 1094. This building, which was never the seat of an abbey, retained a unique nave and a choir to apse, from which today the north crusillon and vaulted rooms remain.

In the 17th century, the Franciscan Recollets, installed since 1598, restored the church between 1646 and 1647 and built a convent in 1640. Partially demolished after the Revolution, the church appeared in ruins around 1825-1830. The site was renovated on terraces between 1890 and 1900, after the construction of a new road. The transformed convent now houses a youth hostel, while the chapel and its fountain, classified in 1987, recall the medieval and modern history of the place.

Recent excavations in the north cruise revealed a network of pipes feeding a tiled basin, later replaced by the granite fountain known as Saint-Amand. The sarcophagus present on the site, often associated with the hermit, would actually date back to the early 19th century. The Italian lookout, built around 1825 by the sub-prefect Pierre-Léonard Périgord, marks a landscape transformation of the site, once strategic for river and road crossings.

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