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Origin and history

The church of the Old Lugo, dedicated to Saint Michael, was built in the 11th century in ironware sandstone in the heart of the Landes forest, on the site of the former village of Lugo, now extinct. This medieval village had developed at the crossing of two historical paths: the Bordeaux-Dax road (to Spain) and the La Teste-de-Buch-Bazas route, both taken by the pilgrims of Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle. The Leyre ford, floating for the transport of wood and salt, played a major economic role, although its winter crossing was perilous.

The decline of Lugo began in the 18th century after the displacement of the course of Leyre and the construction of the Bordeaux-Bayonne royal road, passing through Belin. The village gradually moved to the present Lugos, 5 km southwest. The church, abandoned around 1849 after the construction of a new place of worship in the village, preserves traces of its past: a 15th century bell tower (replacing a primitive bell tower), a bell dated 1643, and a chapel Notre-Dame added in the 17th century. His cemetery, surrounded by a wall that is now extinct, was abandoned in the early twentieth century.

Inside, the Romanesque nave houses 15th century murals, rediscovered in 1955 by Abbé Thomas. These frescoes illustrate themes related to the Compostellan pilgrimages: the seven capital sins, the said of the three dead and the three alive (recall of mortality), and the miracle of the pendulum-dependent (Jacquarian legend). A veyrin (opening murated in the apse) probably served baptisms, according to a pre-Christian Aquitaine tradition of infant passage through narrow openings. The current stained glass windows, installed in the 1950s, replace original Romanesque bays.

Ranked a Historic Monument in 1957, the church benefited from major restorations: roof ( 1950s and 1998), bell tower (2005). The furniture includes statues of Notre-Dame de la Vallée and Saint Michel, as well as a Saint Jacques carrying a child, recalling his role as a stage on the paths of Compostela. The watercolours of the frescoes, made in 1955, are preserved at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris in anticipation of a possible restoration.

The site, accessible by a forest path from Lugos or Belin-Béliet, bears witness to the history of the medieval Landes: a place of passage, of commerce (wood, salt, resin) and of devotion, today preserved in the midst of pine trees. The local legend evokes a door of the clots (mature entry for lepers or excommunicated), although its actual use remains uncertain. The church remains a place of pilgrimage and recollection, surrounded by ex-voto deposited by the visitors.

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