The Church Sainte Croix Of Champeix

Perched on a basalt peak above the valley of Couty, you will enjoy a beautiful panorama. The church dates back to the 12th century, reworked especially in the 15th century. We still can see the vestiges of the fortified priory. Inside, we can find a Christ made of ivory.
Parish headquarters, the Sainte-Croix church was also attached to a priory of the abbey of Saint-Austremoine of Issoire, a possible source of inspiration for the builders of the Romanesque apse: the semicircular apse is extended by a straight bay, the bays are highlighted by a cordon of billets, the cornice rests on chip modillions. You enter the interior through a 19th century gate. The nave and its side aisles were altered in the 17th and 19th centuries and, as outside, only the choir is Romanesque. In the last bay, the north aisle surprises by the finesse of its star-shaped ribbed vault, a possible indication of a 16th century seigneurial chapel. Between the nave and the choir, two 17th century capitals bear inscriptions that recall the columns of Solomon's temple in Jerusalem.