Neuville-en-Poitou (Vienne)

Aux deux côtés de la R.N. 147 se trouvent deux dolmens impressionants.
Le premier, sur le côté sud de la D.42, aux Rochelles, ressemble à un dolmen typique irlandais,
mais en faite n'est que la seule chambre survivante d'une allée couverte.
Quelques fragments de dalles-tables se trouvent à côté.

Conveniently close to the lethal Route Nationale running North-South at Neuville are two impressive dolmens
- but only the second shown here is marked on the Michelin maps.

One, actually to the S of the D.42, looks like a leaning Irish portal tomb,
but is in fact the sole surviving part-chamber of an allée couverte.
Fragments of some roofstones lie to the left.

Quelques kilomètres su sud-est, marqué sur la carte Michelin et visible de la route nationale auprès de Neuville-en-Poitou
sont les restes d'une allée couverte d'une qualité différente.

A few kilometres SE, on the other side of the RN 142, and visible from it, almost on the outskirts of Neuville,
are the remains of an allée couverte of a different sculptural quality.

See also pictures of a tomb not far away at Arçay (SW of Loudun) >

When I photographed these megaliths in September 2005, I was on my way from Cherbourg to the Limousin,
and thence after a few days to settle in to my little mediæval town-house at Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val.
South-east of Poitiers, and almost on my route (which avoided all large towns)
were a roadside wreck of a dolmen at Loubressac, near Civaux...

...(N of the collection of Merovingian sarcophagi and lids in the graveyard there)...

...and this handsome allée couverte in a brake or breuil on top of a knoll at Chiroux
150 metres E of the road from Plaisance to Adriers, a short distance E of the N147.