Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The former priory of Tresseroux, located in the Lèches in the Dordogne, is a 12th century religious building, built around 1130. It belonged to a priory of Benedictines attached to the abbey of Ligueux, and its name would come from Tres sorores (Three sisters), evoking three close sources or a legend related to L ́abbess Maximira and his sisters Eudoxie and Alsmodia. The chapel, dedicated to Saint-Thomas, was located in an isolated forest, on an axis linking Mussidan and Bergerac.

In the 14th century, the priory reached its peak, becoming a rural parish centre in 1363. He then possessed low justice, while the lord of Mussidan held high justice. Two priors are attested: Guilhelma de Ferrières (1301) and Placentia de Faugeyrac (1472). The decline began in the seventeenth century: in 1688, the chapel, without a priest, threatened to ruin. Sold as national property in 1793, the priory fell to ruin in 1857.

Ranked a historic monument in 1982, the chapel was restored between 1997 and 2002 by a local association. From a rectangular to a unique nave, it keeps blind arcades in the middle of a hanger and traces of a pigeon tree. Graffitis damaged in 2022. Its modest architecture and its history related to Benedictines make it a rare testimony to the perigordinal religious heritage.

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