Echallat

Echallat
region	Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Department	Charente
Arrondissement	cognac
Canton	Val de Nouère
Community association	Rouillacais
Coordinates	45 ° 43 ′  N , 0 ° 2 ′  W Coordinates: 45 ° 43 ′  N , 0 ° 2 ′  W
height	50-149 m
surface	15.14 km 2
Residents	497 (January 1, 2017)
Population density	33 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code	16170
INSEE code	16123
Saint-Maurice Church

Échallat ( Occitan : identical) is a municipality and a town with 497 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in the western French department of Charente in the region Nouvelle-Aquitaine . The community consists of several hamlets ( hameaux ) and individual farmsteads .

location

The place Échallat is located in the old cultural landscape of the Angoumois , part of the Charente , at an altitude of about 95 m above sea level. d. M. and is around 22 km (driving distance) in a north-westerly direction from the city of Angoulême .

Population development

year	1800	1851	1901	1954	1999	2013
Residents	1,046	855	600	517	423	498

The population decline in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century is mainly due to the loss of jobs as a result of the phylloxera crisis in viticulture and the overall increasing mechanization of agriculture .

economy

While the residents of the village lived for centuries as self-sufficiency from the yields of their fields and gardens, viticulture was promoted in the late Middle Ages and early modern times, although - after the phylloxera crisis in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - it was not again its earlier Reached importance. Tourism also plays a not insignificant role for the economic life of the municipality in the form of renting holiday apartments ( gîtes ).

history

In the Middle Ages, the municipality was heavily forested; the Forêt de Marange served the Counts of Angoulême as a hunting ground. The common people only had the right to cut wood for their own needs. In the absence of records, nothing is known about the events during the Hundred Years War (1337–1453) or the Huguenot Wars (1562–1598).

Attractions

Well house and wash house

• The former priory church and today's parish church of Saint-Maurice was built in the 12th century; In the 15th century it was increased - so rooms were created above the nave that could be used in case of defense. The sloping buttresses of the west facade were given small pyramidal attachments with spheres; the portal was transformed into a Gothic archivolt portal . The yokes of the nave are barrel vaulted; the crossing is covered by a dome on pendentives . Numerous figural and vegetable capitals from the Romanesque era have been preserved. Church construction has been recognized as a monument historique since 1986 .
• On the outskirts there is a roofed well house with an attached wash house ( lavoir ) from the 19th century.

Web links

Commons : Échallat  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Échallat - Viticulture
2. ↑ Église Saint-Maurice, Échallat in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)