Sommepy-Tahure

Location

Sommepy-Tahure lies in the north of the Marne département, right on the border with the Ardennes. Reims is a good 38 kilometres to the west, and Châlons-en-Champagne about 36 kilometres to the south-west. In terms of landscape, the area belongs to the Champagne crayeuse, the chalk Champagne, on the edge of the Argonne. The terrain is gently rolling and lies between 123 and 211 metres above sea level.

At just under 68 square kilometres, Sommepy-Tahure is the largest commune in the Marne. The lion's share of its area is taken up by the Suippes military camp. As at 1 January 2023, the commune had 663 inhabitants.

Champagne and landscape

Sommepy-Tahure is not a Grand Cru or Premier Cru, and the source gives no figures for vineyard area. A good half of the commune is arable land, a quarter is scrub and grassland, and just under a fifth is forest. For wine lovers, then, this is more a stop away from the vine slopes. It shows the chalk landscape on which the whole of Champagne rests.

“In 1950 the villages of Sommepy and Tahure were merged into today's commune.

Water is at home here too: the Py rises east of the main village and flows into the Suippe after 15 kilometres. The 17-kilometre-long Dormoise also has its source within the commune and joins the Aisne at Autry. The name Sommepy recalls this, since in local place-name studies "somme" means "spring". Sommepy therefore means "source of the Py".

History

Finds point to settlement since antiquity: a Gaulish cemetery near the Blanc Mont and Roman coins at Champ Blaud. Sommepy is first mentioned in 1126 and belonged to the holdings of the Counts of Grandpré. The lordship later became a barony, which passed to the Loménie de Brienne family.

In 1650, during the Fronde, Turenne fought the battle at the Blanc Mont known as the Battle of Rethel. In the First World War the area lay within the fighting zone, which still shapes the look of the place and its culture of remembrance. In 1950 the villages of Sommepy and Tahure were merged into today's commune. Tahure has been an abandoned village ever since.

Chanoine Frères Champagner

Things to see

• Church of Saint-Martin from the 15th century, rebuilt in the 17th century and protected as a Monument historique since 1862
• French national cemetery
• Château de Sommepy

Getting there is easy via the D 977, which runs north from Châlons-en-Champagne. If you take the A4 motorway, leave at exit 28 and continue for about 28 kilometres. Since 1993 the commune has been twinned with Wassenach in Rhineland-Palatinate.