Saint-Paul-Lès-Dax Church was built at
the end of a natural shelf, in the very
place where the aqueduct bringing cold
water to the city of Aquae Tarbellicae
(Dax) used to start flowing.
Unfortunately, we haven’t got any historic
information about the...
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Saint-Paul-Lès-Dax Church was built at
the end of a natural shelf, in the very
place where the aqueduct bringing cold
water to the city of Aquae Tarbellicae
(Dax) used to start flowing.
Unfortunately, we haven’t got any historic
information about the origins or the past of the building
itself, but we assume that such an imposing church had
been erected there as far back as in the XIth century. It
was replaced in the XII th century and nowadays there
only remains the richly ornamented pase as the unique
testimony of the whole building. More precisely, the aisle
dates back from the mid XIX th, when it replaced the old
nave which had become too small and too derelict.
INSIDE THE APSE
A recent restoration got rid of the plastering and
whitewash which had covered it since the destruction of
the XIVth and XVth c.paintings that could be seen until
around 1920. The lower part of the apse is decorated
with 11 niches dug in the stonework and displayed above
a protruding basement.
THE BAS-RELIEF
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