In Vaux, Romanesque architecture and the history of the Canal de Berry come together as themes for a trip. The Church of Saint-Eloi, Château des Trillers and the canal structures each represent different historical details; an easy hike and a cycling route offer two different levels of distance. This lets you weigh up whether cultural history, hiking or cycling should shape your stay.
Saint-Eloi and Château des Trillers
The Church of Saint-Eloi is a Romanesque church dating from the 12th century. Its west façade is designed as a bell gable and divided by two arches. The building is made of red sandstone and has a rectangular floor plan with a semicircular apse. The façade and floor plan reveal two different aspects of the architecture: the divided form of the bell gable on the outside, and the combination of a rectangular layout and rounded end in the building plan.
Château des Trillers is a manor house in the style of the second half of the 19th century. Together with Saint-Eloi, it offers a contrast between a Romanesque church from the 12th century and a manor house whose style belongs to the latter half of the 19th century. For a cultural and historical focus, Vaux offers not just a single religious building, but a range of architectural forms and periods.
Canal construction and the Magieure
The Vaux Canal Bridge was built between 1825 and 1828 and spans the Magieure with three arches. Its restoration was completed in September 2018. This included a fish pass intended to restore the ecological continuity of the Magieure. The structure therefore brings historic canal architecture and a later ecological restoration objective into view together.
The Chantemerle canal bridge near Vaux is a 27-metre-long stone bridge over the Magieure, with three arched openings. The lock keeper’s house is also part of the built environment around Chantemerle: it was one of nine houses built between 1822 and 1826 under the direction of the engineer Aunier. The construction periods for the houses and the bridge overlap in 1825 and 1826.
The locks also offer a concrete point of comparison. The difference in water level between the two canal reaches at Chantemerle is just over three metres. This is the greatest difference in level among the 95 locks on the Canal de Berry. The figure therefore does more than describe a measurement at one location; it places Chantemerle within the canal’s entire sequence of locks.
Hiking or cycling?
For a hike, the PR6 Circuit Le sentier des Vignes is an easy 6.9-kilometre route, taking approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes. In Vaux, the route is marked at Place Saint-Eloi and Place de l’Église. The longer cycling option is the Voie verte du Canal de Berry: this approximately 20-kilometre route runs between Montluçon and Vallon-en-Sully and passes by the Vaux Canal Bridge.
The two routes differ both in activity and in length. The PR6 offers a shorter hike with a stated duration; the Voie verte is a longer cycling route that passes a canal structure. When planning your trip to Vaux, you can consider these differences alongside the church, manor house and canal history to choose the focus of your stay.
Discover more destinations: Gannay-Sur-Loire, Coutansouze, Sainte-Thérence, Lusigny, Audes, Bellerive-Sur-Allier, Paray-Le-Frésil, Saulcet
For the overview of the wider region: Allier.
