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Origin and history

The church of Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, located in the town of Touraine, has its origins in the 11th century, although a parish named Saint-Pierre-de-Belle-Vallée has been attested since the 6th century. Built on a hilltop overlooking the village, it is said to have replaced an older place of worship. The building, dependent on the Saint-Julien Abbey of Tours under the Old Regime, was thoroughly renovated in the 15th and 16th centuries and restored in 1895-1896. His term honors Saint Anthony, a sixth century hermit linked to a cave and a local spring, where a chapel was erected in the 19th century.

The church is distinguished by its unique extended nave of a rectangular choir with flat bedside, surmounted by a dome bell tower decorated with a cross, a cock and a lightning rod. Ten stained glass windows, including a 16th century stained glass window classified as a Historic Monument in 1939, illuminate the interior. This stained glass window, representing the Fountain of Life with Christ in a press symbolizing the local vineyard, was restored by Joseph Prosper Florence at the end of the 19th century. The other stained glass windows, offered in the 1890s, were the work of the same master tourangeau glassmaker, Lucien-Léopold Lobin's successor.

Among the treasures of the church are a painted wooden panel dated 1594, classified in 1941, illustrating the life of Saint Claude de Besançon, and two ceramic statues of Charles-Jean Avisseau (1837-1838), classified in 1993. The bell tower houses a bell of 1431, recast in 1724 and 1952, classified in 1942. These elements testify to the historical and artistic importance of the building, marked by centuries of devotion and monastic patronage.

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