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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The church of Saint Martin de Vallenay, built in the 12th century, was originally a Romanesque parish church. In the 13th century, Vallenay became a priory dependent on the regular canon abbey of Plaimpied, integrating the building into a regional religious network. The church was rebuilt in the 15th to 16th centuries, with the addition of a vaulted choir and a seigneurial chapel (known as Bigny), while the priory was included in the enclosure of the local castle, of which a tower and a house remain.

At Revolution, the church was transformed into a temple of reason (1793) before returning to its cultural use in 1797. In the 19th century, its state of degradation prompted the commune to build a new church (Saint-Roch) in 1898, leading to its abandonment. Disused, it served as a wine warehouse until 1982, then as a municipal garage, undergoing radical changes: the Romanesque portal was replaced by a square opening, and bays were pierced into the south wall, partially destroying the paintings.

The restoration began in 1987 with the repair of the gate and roof, and continued in 2010 with private funding (including $36,000 from the French Heritage Society) and public funding. The works, completed in 2014, revealed Romanesque frescoes (calendar months, biblical scenes) and decorations from the 14th-17th centuries, partially masked by badigeons. Today, the building, registered as a Historic Monument since 1998, is a Heritage House hosting cultural events.

The architecture combines a Romanesque nave with wooden ceiling (width 5.70 m) and a late Gothic choir (5.30 m wide), without transept. The roman bedside was reused for the outside modillons. Among the remarkable elements are: a broken black epitaph of Joseph de Bigny, a tombstone of Claude de Bigny (1622), and murals, including a Christ in glory accompanied by the tetramorph, as well as a funerary liter of the 17th–15th centuries.

The paintings, among the Cher's oldest, include a novel calendar illustrating the work of the months (January represented by Janus, March by the size of the vine), and a biblical scene identified as Miraculous Fishing or Meal at Simon's. These works, partly erased or covered, bear witness to the artistic evolution of the site, from the Romanesque origins to the seigneurial additions of the 17th–15th centuries.

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