Champignelles () is a commune in the

Yonne Yonne (, in Burgundian: ''Ghienne'') is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in France. It is named after the river Yonne, which flows through it, in the country's north-central part. One of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté's eight con ...

department in

Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (; , sometimes abbreviated BFC; Arpitan: ''Borgogne-Franche-Comtât'') is a region in eastern France created by the 2014 territorial reform of French regions, from a merger of Burgundy and Franche-Comté. The new region ...

in north-central

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. The commune of Champignelle is situated near the

Loiret Loiret (; ) is a department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of north-central France. It takes its name from the river Loiret, which is contained wholly within the department. In 2019, Loiret had a population of 680,434.

department, at 50 km from

Auxerre Auxerre ( , , Burgundian language (Oïl), Burgundian: ''Auchoirre'') is the capital (Prefectures in France, prefecture) of the Yonne Departments of France, department and the fourth-largest city in the Burgundy historical region southeast of Par ...

and

Montargis Montargis () is a commune in the Loiret department, Centre-Val de Loire, France. Montargis is the seventh most populous commune in the Centre-Val de Loire ''région'', and the second in the Loiret ''département'' after Orléans. It is near ...

and 150 km south of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Champignelles was merged with the neighbouring commune of Louesme on 1 January 1973.

History

The castle of the Parc Veil is an evidence of the past families thait reigned over the area until the 19th century.

Sightseeing

Le petit train de Champignelles

Built on a land of near the Agréau stream, the Little Train of Champignelles is a

ridable miniature railway A ridable miniature railway (US: riding railroad or grand scale railroad) is a large scale, usually ground-level railway that hauls passengers using locomotives that are often models of full-sized railway locomotives (powered by diesel or pet ...

network reproduced on a 1/3 scale. The APTC (''Association du Petit Train de Champignelles'') was created in 1990 by a group of devoted modellers that worked on a project to rehabilitate an abandoned field in Champignelles, near a place known as Prés de l'Abîme. Some sixty volunteers participated in the construction, who built the rail network with railway stations, an automated signaling control, turntable, and planted trees to create a nice undergrowth for the train and its association. The track has a 40 cm gauge and has a 1 km network. The BB-001 locomotive runs on a Chrysler thermal engine and can reach 12 km/h. Many events are held on the premises.

Saint-Roch church in Louesme

The church is devoted to

Saint Roch Roch (lived c. 1348 – 15/16 August 1376/79; traditionally c. 1295 – 16 August 1327), also called Rock in English, was a Majorcan Catholic confessor whose death is commemorated on 16 August and 9 September in Italy; he was especially invo ...

and is in the part of the commune that used to be the Louesme commune, before the municipal merger with Champignelles. It was inscribed as a national monument in 1992. The church was built during the Gothic period, between the 12th and 13th centuries near the creek dedicated to the goddess Loïma from where the name of the village came. The church was first dedicated to the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

, but was later devoted to

after the plague of 1710. Many modification were done on the church in the 16th century, with the addition of large windows and a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

, but the building kept is unique

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, which is unaligned with the

narthex The narthex is an architectural element typical of Early Christian art and architecture, early Christian and Byzantine architecture, Byzantine basilicas and Church architecture, churches consisting of the entrance or Vestibule (architecture), ve ...

. The

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

is from 1600, and the bell, surnamed "Marguerite" and weighing 180 kg, was blessed in 1722. Many ancient mural paintings from the 16th century were discovered and restored at the end of the 20th century.

References

External links