Closed for renovations

We have seen almost all churches in the vicinity, inside and outside. However, there are still two churches on our list of buildings of which the inside could do with some proper photographs.

2014 Interior - Buffières

A group of people have been busy for a couple of years now, during the summer, with the restauration of a ceiling painting in the apse of the church of Buffières. During winter there is no work done, but the scaffolding is still there, which makes it impossible to take some proper pictures of the apse. An article in a local paper suggested that the works would be finished in August 2014, but a visual inspection in September denied that, and a phone call to the organisation that finances the restoration learned that the work will continue in 2015.

2014 Interior - Milly-Lamartine

The church in Milly-Lamartine has been closed for a couple of years due to danger of falling debris. When we decided to check again on a day the town hall would be open, we noticed that some restauration work had started. The roofers that were occupied with it had left the side portal of the church open, which enabled me to have a quick snoop inside. The renovations should be finished before May 2015, according to a sign outside. The falling debris sign however is still nailed to the door.

2014 Bell tower - Ougy

Ougy has a church which has been amply covered by me. When we passed by there for a completely different reason, we noticed scaffolding and a notice board about the restauration of the church. Hopefully they will be able to do something about the moisture ingress, a problem of which a lot of old Romanesque churches are suffering.

The link to the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle can be found here.

Reading is not really my strong point

I had visited the church in Ougy (commune of Malay) at least three times, the last two times to make some more detailed pictures of the inside and the outside of the church. Inside the church itself there are a number of remains of wall paintings, and one of them should depict Philip the Apostle. I had looked a number of times at all the fragments, but I had never spotted someone who could have been Philip.

The church of Ougy

The apse hosts some very vague remains of a Chist in Glory, and a picture of a winged bull (Luke the Evangelist) on the left hand side and of Luke himself on the right hand side. And further there are some remains of a mourning band with the coat of arms of the Family du Blé of Uxelles, the Lords of Cormatin.

Interior with western door

In October 2013 Eduard van Boxtel asked me if I could provide him with a big size photograph of the interior of this church; he wanted to cut out a picture of the fresco of Saint-Philip to his website. And that question woke me up. Indeed, just above the western door, which is always closed, one could distinguish with a bit of effort, in a half circle, a fresco. Because the walls of the church have rather suffered a long time from moisture, and were hence pockmarked with stains, the fresco did not look so much different from those stains at a distance.

The coat of arms of the Du Blé family

The larger picture was transferred in no time, with a promise that I would pop by the church again to take a proper picture; we quite regularly pass by Ougy anyway. I had never seen this church closed, so it was quite a surprise to find, on Wednesday 6 November, the door locked with a notice pinned upon the door :"Church closed from 4 November to 3 March 2014, except on Saturdays and Sundays". No big deal of course: on Saturday 9 November we were back. However, irrespective of the promise on the notice, the church was closed. Sunday 17 November we had more luck; the side door of the church stood wide open.

The symbol of Luke the Evangelist

Even now it was not directly clear what the fresco was all about. The painting is located in a rather dark part of the church, but once my eyes had adjusted themselves to the twilight it was obviously the one I was looking for. Because I prefer to take pictures without flash, and because my partner discovered that the door was not locked but bolted with a beam resting in recesses in the wall, it did not take much time to discover how to unbolt the door which made the fresco perfectly visible.

Luke the Evangelist

Anyway, shooting some detailed pictures was a doddle, and after that it was just a matter of closing the door and put the beam back into place.
In hindsight I could have found the fresco easily on a previous visit. According to a brochure the fresco is located "on the other side of the West portal". This may not be as clear as "inside, above the front door", but for a weathered church spotter the location in the brochure should be clear enough.
Which proves again, that he who does not use his brain, will have to resort to using his legs, in my case his car!

Philips the Apostle

It takes only 15 minutes by car to get from La Tuilerie de Chazelle to Ougy.