Pyrénées-Orientales A brief history... Serrabone nestles 600 metres up at the end of a narrow road following the Boulès gorges in a stark landscape with wooded crests. This "good mountain" (as its name implies) was home to a small community of Augustine canons as early as 1082 AD. Their prayer life was accompanied by farmwork. The priory's lands were thus covered in irrigated orchards and fields. However, the papacy's fight against the reforming influence of the Augustine order led the monks to abandon the priory in 1612. The buildings lay forgotten and falling into ruin for two centuries, sheltering only shepherds and their flocks. Restoration work began in the XIXth century.

Romanesque treasures Serrabone church, built by country-dwellers in 1080, hides unsuspected treasures under its modest facade. Colonnades flourish in a bouquet of pink-blue marble from the Villefranche quarries. 25 capitals with over 600 sculpted designs of eastern inspiration decorate its famous gallery on its enormous blocks of grey shale. Eagles in flight or at rest, griffons, winged lions walking or in a circle, symbols of saint Mark and saint John, conjure up the power of Revelation, ever present in medieval imagination and spiritual life.

The gallery of Serrabone church

		Prieuré de Serrabone 66130 Boule-d'Amont Phone: 04 68 84 09 30	Visiting times Open daily (except 01/01, 01/05, 01/11, 25/12.) : 10am-6pm

Access: Leave Perpignan on the N116 then take the D618 after Ille-sur-Têt