Saint-Pourçain-on-Sioule

Saint-Pourçain-on-Sioule is a common French, located in the department Allier and the area Auvergne.

The commune is also chief town of canton attached to the Arrondissement of Moulins. It is a small town of 5363 inhabitants (1999) which extends on 3567 hectares, on both sides of the river the Sioule, in a rural environment characteristic of the landscape of the " Limagne bourbonnaise ".

Its inhabitants is called the Saint-Pourcinois .

Geography

The city is located at crossed roads of Clermont-Ferrand to Paris (N9) and of Lyon to Limoges, with 30 kilometers of Moulins and Vichy. It belongs to the Communauté of communes in Country Saint-Pourcinois.

History

It is as from the 6th century that one finds traces of the city in the history when Porcianus or " Purcianus" or " Portien" , a former pig-keeper says one, became abbot of a monastery establishes on an unknown date on this small height dominating the river. With the the Middle Ages, the priory Benedictine, which depended on the Abbaye Saint-Philibert of Tournus thrived at the same time as the city which sheltered at the time of Charles V a royal monetary workshop. It is at the 14th century that the borough was surrounded by walls.

Administration

Demography

The holy vineyard pourcinois

The presence of the vine is very old and at that time the wines of Saint-Pourçain are very famous since they were been used with the table as Saint-Louis, king de France and of the pope in his palate of Avignon. The vineyard reaches its apogee at the end of the 18th century then declined gently until 1892, year when the vines are devastated by will phylloxéra. Efforts of rebuilding made it possible the vineyard to find a surface of approximately 600 hectares out of 19 communes of the area.

See: Wines of Saint-Pourçain

Monuments

; The Charles-of-Gaulle bridge: It completion date of the 17th century (plane drawn up by Matthieu, engineer and architect of the buildings of the King). Renovated several times following risings and at the damage of the 2nd world war, it still presents its slightly convex original aspect, with four spur piles. Very beautiful point of view on the old city.

; The tower of the clock or belfry: Set up on one of the old towers of the monastic enclosure in the neighborhoods of 1480, it is used first of all as turn of guet and constitutes one of the symbols of communal freedoms. It is then equipped with a clock with its bell by the inhabitants who were then in conflict with the monks of the priory. At the end of the 18th century, the clock was transferred in the bell-tower from the church to return in the tower to return starting from 1837 during the restoration of its upper part who was completed in 1842. It is about this time that the name of Belfry was given to him. Inside this tower, is held a spiral staircase which one can admire from the house of the baillif who shelters the collections of the Museum of the Vine; this last devotes one of its rooms to the history of the city.

; The church Holy-Cross: Old the prieurale Holy-Cross, now parochial, is a vast building which required several construction campaigns. It presents a porch dating from the beginning of the Romance time above which the bell-tower rises. The Gothic nave is covered with a frame in hull of vessel. Inside, the visitor will admire especially the chorus whose roundabout comprises very elegant pointed arches. The northern porch preserved the niches and the bases of its old statue-columns destroyed at the Revolution. The stalls of monks Benedictines of the 15th century, the statue of polychrome stone Ecce homo of the end of the 16th century and the Master furnace bridge of the 18th century constitute the most beautiful objects preserved inside this church which has also an organ Cavaillé-coll of the 19th century, excel instrument.

; Museum of the Vine and the Soil: Being in the court of the Benedictines, the museum proposes more than one ten rooms to be discovered to know the holy vineyard pourcinois and its history.

Annual events

Fair of the wines: last weekend of February
Festival of wine and greedy the /Festival wines: last week of August
Round of applause of the grape harvest: third Sunday of September
the String: first Saturday of December

Famous characters

Blaise de Vigenère, which gave its name to the college/college of the city.

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