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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The chapel Saint-Thyrse de Robion, located 7 km south of Castellane in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, is a Romanesque building from the 12th to the 13th centuries. Isolated on a rocky plateau near the hamlet of Robion, it served as a parish church until 1748, when it was replaced by Notre-Dame. Its elongated plan, with a unique nave and apse in hemicycle, reflects the first Provencal Romanesque art. The bell tower, decorated with lumbar stripes, and traces of inner polychromy testify to its past importance.

Ranked a Historic Monument in 1944 after a restoration in 1942, the chapel experienced several phases of degradation. The vault partially collapsed, resulting in repairs in the 18th century, including a frame replacing the original vault. In 2015, a municipal decree prohibited access for "risk of collapse", despite previous consolidations (1979, 2003). His supposed link with the Templars, evoked by an engraved Maltese cross, remains unproven.

The pastoral visits of the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries reveal its gradual decline: in 1697 Bishop Soanen ordered urgent repairs (roof, bell tower, unenclosed cemetery). In 1703 a general restoration was undertaken, but parish transfer in 1748 sealed its partial abandonment. In the 19th century, the neighbouring hamlet depopulated, leaving the chapel to its fate. The work of the twentieth century (concrete vault, metal cover) did not prevent its present degradation.

Architecturally, the chapel is distinguished by its apparatus treated in medium apparatus, its blind archatures and its liturgical niches. The bell tower, independent of the nave, presents twin berries and modillons typical of Provencal Romanesque art. Despite its precarious state, it retains original elements (northward, apse) and traces of its funerary use (attired cemetery).

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