Saint-Léger de Cheylade Church

The Saint-Léger de Cheylade Church, in Cheylade, a small French commune of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, is a Romanesque religious edifice erected in the 11th century, ruined during the Hundred Years' War, rebuilt and remodeled several times between the 15th and 17th centuries, and touched up again in the 19th century. Consecrated to Leodegar of Poitiers and dedicated to Catholic worship, the church long belonged to the diocese of Clermont, but since the French Revolution has been under the diocese of Saint-Flour. Modest in design and size, like many of the region's churches it is built of volcanic rock, with a slate roof. Although the interior is almost devoid of sculpted ornamentation and features few remarkable works of art or furnishings, it is distinguished by a highly original wooden coffered ceiling: 1,360 squares probably painted in the 18th century with polychrome motifs, simple in style but imbued with Christian symbols. It was these paintings, done on the three vaults by an anonymous artist, that enabled the church to be listed as a historic monument in 1963.

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).