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Origin and history

The former chapel Saint-Martin d'En Valls, located in Angustrine-Villeneuve-des-Escaldes in the Pyrénées-Orientales, is a Romanesque building built at the end of the 12th century. It was annexed to a small hospital for transhumant shepherds on the roads of Carlitt, Bouillouses and Capcir. Served by Oblates under the direction of a priest, she was dependent on the monastery of Espira de Conflent, which exercised its jurisdiction.

The church presents a typical plan of Romanesque constructions of the period: a single nave extended by a semicircular apse, surmounted by a bell tower-wall with two slightly curved arches. Its south facade has a full-circle double roller arch door, while the whole is built of granite and sandstone bellows, covered with lauze in fish scales. Inside, the nave is arched into a broken cradle, and a small wooden stand occupies the bottom of the building.

Until 1975, the chapel housed a statuette of Virgin with Child in polychrome wood dating from the thirteenth century. It was registered as historical monuments by order of 28 March 1996, thus becoming a protected testimony of local medieval religious architecture. Today owned by the municipality, its state of conservation and accessibility are not specified in the available sources.

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