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Origin and history

The Priory of San Marino, located in Saint-Marcel in Indre (Centre-Val de Loire), was founded by Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe between the 11th and 12th centuries. Dedicated to San Marino, he housed a chapel renowned for his pilgrimage of "rechognouses", where the parents made the weeping children drink water from the well and turn around the building to heal them. This pilgrimage, again celebrated by an annual mass on the first Saturday of September, once attracted a large crowd.

The priory, mentioned for the first time in 1226, included an agricultural estate with church, Prioral house, barns, stables, wood and a mill (now a hydroelectric plant). Sold as a national property in 1791, the chapel was preserved for worship, while the other buildings were converted to agricultural use. The site, located on the left bank of the Creuse, was once an active port for the flotation of wood, although attempts to make the river navigable from San Marino failed.

The church, of cruciform plan with a unique nave and a salient transept, preserves a square turret housing perhaps an ancient staircase. The priory, of which only the church and the house remain, was inscribed in the historical monuments on 2 April 2003. The chapel, a communal property since 1825, remains a place of devotion and local memory, bearing witness to the influence of the Poitevin abbeys in Berry.

The site was also linked to regional economic activity: its mill, now transformed into a hydroelectric power plant, illustrates the adaptation of medieval infrastructures to modern needs. La Creuse, although not navigable, played a role in the transport of wood, with a port now extinct. The priory thus embodies both a religious, agricultural and industrial heritage.

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