On a territory inhabited since prehistoric times, the church of Tugéras St Maurice - built in the 12th century and of which several historiated capitals remain - was partly destroyed in 1574, at the time of the Wars of Religion. The major restoration that followed gave it the current facade and ogival vaults. It is dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption and Consolation. This last term attests to the existence of a very old brotherhood of Our Lady of Consolation established in the church of Tugéras. A Carmelite from Jonzac serving the parish of Tugéras from 1600 to 1621 confirms this explicitly. We can also note that, two centuries later, this parish was the first to receive the diocesan missionaries instituted in Saintes in 1820, with the approval of the bishop at the time, Mgr Paillou and his vicar general the venerable Father Baudouin... A long history of the past where the present is rooted!
The church dating from the 12th century, an inscription recalls that the church was partly burned in 1574 during the wars of religion. It was restored and modified during the periods from the late Romanesque to the Gothic 16th century, while maintaining a uniform appearance and plan. It is an oriented building and its high facade erected between two heavy straight buttresses, shows a portal rebuilt at the beginning of the 16th century, decorated with cabbage leaves and framed by twisted columns ending in small pinnacles. The top floor and the spire of the bell tower are from the 19th century. It is built on a square base with walls pierced with Romanesque bays. Its supporting arches rest on finely sculpted and varied Romanesque capitals, one of which represents figures swaddled in bandages separated by plumes of palm trees; probably a souvenir mummy from a trip to the Orient. The keys of the apse ribs are decorated, one bears an escutcheon supported by angels, similar to those of the churches of Moulin and Sous-Moulin.
The facade opens with a portal in the Flamboyant Gothic style. Modern bell tower on the third span. Inside, a span covered by a dome on pendentives. Two spans are vaulted with warheads (13th or 15th century), and two others in the flamboyant Gothic style. The Church of the Assumption has been listed as a historic monument since 1935, with the exception of the bell tower whose spire dates from the 19th century. This church contains six silvered copper candlesticks from the first quarter of the 19th century. They have been listed as historic monuments as an object since November 10, 198015. Dating from the same period and also classified since 1980, the altar in painted and gilded wood was restored by Jean-Louis Dufon in 2002 and 2003, in particular the iconographic elements (Saint Peter and Saint Paul).
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