Eglise Saint-Sardos de Laurenque - Gavaudun

From the bastide town of Monflanquin in the north of Lot-et-Garonne, in Haut-Agenais, go up the Lède valley and stop at Gavaudun, a tiny village dominated by a fortress with a proud keep built on a rock. Take a few hundred metres along a path in the undergrowth of chestnut and oak trees and, at the bend in the road, you will see the church of Saint-Sardos de Laurenque, surrounded by its cemetery and tall cypress trees.
First annexed to the priory of Saint-Sardos of which the ruins remain to the south of the hamlet of Laurenque, this beautiful Romanesque church of the 12th century took its name in the 17th century. Built of dressed stone, it is distinguished by its median bell tower, its single nave divided into barrel vaulted bays and above all its remarkable portal, with its friezes and capitals with menagerie and stone plants.