Former church, former town hall, former village centre

Whilst creating my interactive map of Romanesque churches in Saône-et-Loire, locating the church of Ozolles appeared to be not as straight forward as I thought it was. The church was mentioned on Eduard van Boxtel's website, and I had assumed the church to be the village church, which seemed perfectly logical. According to van Boxtel however this was not correct. He knew that it was supposed to be a "former church, next to the mairie, in lieu dit St-Martin". Ozolles is not exactly next door for us, hence we decided to wait until we had to go to the Brionnais to see a client. And since we were then in the vicinity, we could look out for that church.

Mairie - Ozolles

Some time ago we had to go to the Brionnais. That day we were going to try to locate the church of Ozolles and a chapel in Pomey, a hamlet of Ozolles. The "new" church in Ozolles was found fairly quickly, not far from the mairie. Around the mairie there was a plot of open land, which possibly once surrounded an old church. We found somebody walking around the village, but according to this person there was only one church in Ozolles, possibly built on the foundations of its predecessor. The trip to Pomey was not much more successful. Pomey was not shown on the Michelin map, and a sign pointing towards Pomey ended up in a totally different hamlet. After this debacle we put both Ozolles and Pomey on hold.

Interior of the modern church - Ozolles

However, the quest was not given up so easily. The next time we went to the Brionnais we came better prepared. I had received more detailed information from van Boxtel about the Romanesque church in Ozolles. The church was a former church, next to the former mairie, in the former village centre of Ozolles. The old village was centred around Saint-Martin, a hamlet slightly north of Ozolles. The church was one of a cluster of 3 buildings. From one of the other buildings one could clearly see the facade of what once had been a church.

The end of the former church - St-Martin (Ozolles)

In these sort of cases Google Maps as well as the French Geoportail.fr (option IGN maps) gives far better information than Michelin. Saint-Martin was quickly spotted, there was only one group of three houses there, and the chapel of Pomey was also well indicated. A screen dump of the map with Saint-Martin resp. Pomey made it quite easy to find both buildings.

Facade of the former church - St-Martin (Ozolles)

The former church of Ozolles was easily found. The owner, who was according to van Boxtel's source not very helpful where information about his property was concerned, was not home, the gates were not locked, in a word, nothing or nobody stopped me from making a tour around the property. That was Ozolles out of the way.

Chapel from 1877 - Pomey (Ozolles)

Pomey turned out to be easy to find with the detailed map I had printed. And the first building I encountered whilst entering the hamlet appeared to be a chapel. After having had a good look around I noticed a sign saying that the chapel had been built in 1877; not exactly a year famous for its Romanesque building activities! Studying the map closer showed that the chapel (Chapelle des Blancs) was just a tiny bit further down the road. It was a chapel without a roof, and despite of the lack of cover the chapel still seemed to be in use. There was a primitive altar with a cross, and in front of it stood a simple wooden bench.
Despite the fact that these trips are not always as successful as one wishes, one really gets a kick in case the looked for item is indeed found!

Chapelle des Blancs - Pomey (Ozolles)

The Brionnais is well worth a daytrip from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.