Founded by St Éloi in 631 CE, Solignac's abbey church is a Romanesque wonder mostly dating from the 12th century. Its massive interior arches span 14m, holding aloft several large ceiling domes. Carved capitals depict odd humanoid figures, and miraculously preserved 15th-century wooden stalls feature fanciful faces, a menagerie of fantastical animals and even a monk mooning the world (on the first fold-down seat of the left choir stall).
The associated monastery was burnt by Vikings (864) and the English (1388), and pillaged by Protestants (1569). It was grandly rebuilt in 1725, but after 1791 the building became a women's prison, then a porcelain factory and later a school.
