Lis, your house will be on a Cassini map then. Beware of stones being used from other houses though. In this commune there is a house with a 1700-something date above the door. The house is known to have been built for a specific family in the 1840s however the local history buff simply laughs and says that recycling value materials like door lintels still goes on, let alone back then when even the door would have been recycled.
We completed and finally moved into our old beautiful house in Provence late February this year. I asked the couple selling + the notaire when the house was from and we were told 176? Last digit no one knew about! One day, much later, I stood outside the house and looked up and there pretty much clearly cut in the stone scroll above the big lounge window it said 1718! We were surprised that the couple having owned the house for 7 years not know this? I plan to do some research about our old house, and hope the little museum in our little town/village will be of some help! There is no doubt it must have been a gentleman's house, as it's grand, as where the houses attached up and down the street are very different! I hope it'll tell us a story one day! :)
Got that one Vivien! I bought it in 82!
Houses in Brittany: I should also mention a book, Vernacular Architecture of Brittany, by Gwyn Meirion-Jones, 1982, published by John Donald, which is a fascinating study and aid to interpretation, and in English!
I used www.tree-ring.co.uk to get a date on my house in Brittany. I posted wood samples with 80-100 rings from beams and steps we were replacing. At the time it was no result/no fee. However I got an exact date - spring/summer 1533 - and a full report for a very reasonable cost.
It's a first floor hall house, or at least half of one. Some of the local legend is wrong - e.g. that the garde-robe toilet was a prison, but the idea that it was an office might have some truth. I was also told it hadn't been lived in for 150 years, and this was born out by a little dig that an archaeologist friend did behind the house. Lots of post medieval cooking pots, then a big gap.
More recently it was used for cider making and potato storage. What I'd really like to know is where my well was......
I'd be interested to hear from anyone else with sixteenth century houses in the area - near Ploermel, Morbihan. Some of my architectural details are similar to Maison des Ducs de Bretagne in Ploermel, but it's a timber framed town house, where as mine is schiste and granite.
When we bought the house we were told our bread oven was a working oven. it is very large approximately 1.3m diameter. We havent used it yet as the room it is in is beeing used to house the batteries for the solar power :(. Our village/hamlet doesnt an electricity supply from EDF. We were told after the war EDF offered to link up all the small villages in france but when it cam to our village the Mayor agreed to some of the hamlets but not all, unfortunately ours was one of the ones who didnt get it. We think this is the reason the village diminshed and all but died.
We were told that after edf were refused younger people slowly moved away from the hamlet to bigger towns.
The family we bought our house form had never lived in it but their father was born there. He kept the house and accumilated his brothers lands forming approximately an acre. He continued to tend to the garden, used mainly for vegetables and fruits and the house was used as a weekend house by the family. He died a few years ago and the family decided to sell (I think there was a bit of in fighting between them so the best option was to sell).
Since we bought the house thought the family still came up when they saw fit or there was a bank holiday. We have had some arguments due to them just entering the land when the dogs were out by climbing and damaging fences and havent seen them since.Im not quite sure they would be willing to share any history they may have :(
So much history.
Yes we too have the remains of an old bread oven.
The numerous buildings here would have been owned by the master of the vines
and someone would make the bread for all the workers...someone else
would take care of the livestock.
And, I imagine they would be self sufficient with everyone specialising in
something. That is why we have generations of artisans here and farming skills.
Our department has a website where you can go through all the old maps back to the first cadastral maps in Napoleon times. I would guess each department has this.
We dont know too much history on our house only that it was 1 of around 15 buildings. The earliest map I can find is 1832 and all there are many more buildings then to now. Now we have 6 still standing. One is a ruin and basically just 4 walls, 1 is a small comunal bread oven, 1 is the old school for the village which is slowly being worked on. The other 3 are my house, my only neighbours house and another house which isnt lived in but is maintained. I know form the map that there was at least 1 other building on our land and in fact the footings are still there.
I would love to know more about the house for little questions like:- why do we have a bread oven attached tot eh house when there is a communal one 250m away.
Jacques, your starting point must be the carte de Cassini, which is 18 century, pre-revolutionary. It gives a good start and may have the original name for going to archives to look for the origins. We did it with our house that was first recorded in 1750, which means it might have been built a bit earlier but we know at least the newest it is and the name of the owner then.
We are trying to track down the age of our house. Saw that the house was built in early 1700 and we believe that the kitchen part even earlier. We have tracked down several of the occupiers. The origins of the name of the house was taken from another house, the last that burned down. Will be going down to the Archives and look at the registre communales des proprietaires…
We arent sure about ours the agent said about 200 plus but there is a house opposite in the centre of a row with 1689 over the door was that when the hamlet was built or just that one house then others built around it 500 metres down the road another hamlet with one house 1619 over that door our house has obviously been altered over the years as we have found blocked up and plasterd over windows still with their frames, walls where doors or windows were the outline is still visible who would know did they or do they keep records
I like the stories.
Clacton On Sea...oh gosh ...there would be a story...A CURRENTONE which takes an Essex lady to
the A E in St Foy La Grande.
Andy your property holds a few secrets and mysteries.
I don't really know the age of our house, parts of it are old and other parts clearly built on later,It is built against the existing walls of a Chateau or its outbuildings that certainly was here during the 1500's although I have yet to discover when it was first built. It was occupied at some point during her life by Corisande d'Andoins one of the mistress's of Henri IV. It was torched during the wars of religion by Gabriel compte de montgomery along with some other local buildings he stopped in whilst on his way to meet the advancing catholic troops. He went on to accidentlly kill Henri II during a jousting match. I have found reference to it's continued exsistence in the early 1600's when it was dubbed ' La lanterne de biggore' due to its prominence overlooking the area between itself and the Pryenees. I have yet to discover when it was finally demolished, the only other historical reference I can find is that the duke of Wellington camped here in 1814 whilst chasing Napolian's troops out of Spain.
Several years ago we owned a windmill which overlooked the bay of Cancale..
Very interesting spot not far from St Malo...
During the war the Germans took the mill roof off and used the
space to enplace guns....gun enplacementsc
Apart from the invasive wind which raged and swirled there were
often a stream of camper vans which lurked and lingered invading
solitude.
The garlic seller would set up close by and grunt at everyone who approached.
Mr Bastard grew great garlic but was the friendliest Frenchman I had met.
The field mice of the area were very friendly and came in to visit in large
family groups...mainly when we were not around to greet them.
for atta
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Our house was built in 1849 and just a couple of weeks ago we met a member of the very large and prominent family that lived in our house decades ago.
I saw an image of the storefront when it was a Quincaillerie at the turn of last century. We try to find out more about it and the same chap who stopped by, promised more images and stories.
Our house was built in about 1860 but looks quite a bit older as the viallge is quite isolated and architectural style was slow to get to the provinces. The main part is very austere ashlar granite with a slate roof with a nice projecting eaves on a granite corbel. We still have timber windows unlike most in the village but our shutters are plastic (although quite discrete folding ones) which I would like to change. I think it's one of the oldest houses remaining as inhabited in the village. It was considered quite posh at the time as it was the notaire's house whicvh became a bar and haberdasher's. There is a flagpole over the front door. It has four main rooms on each of two floors with quite large greniers and a cellar. Behind we have a walled garden which we have made into a parterre with gravelled allees and box hedging. Beyond that we have a stone built creche with original manger and we have re-done the structure and the roof with slates. There is what was a potager beyond but is now a children's play area! In the house we have plenty of nice features including some panelling and good fireplaces. It's brimming in character. The thing that originally sold it to me and my last late wife was although it had been empty for years (and very cheap) when we entered the whole of the ground floor was a sea of flowring chrystanthemums (it was just before All Saints) and being used as an annexe to the local shop. Rising out of this is a winding staircase the flights of which are only 500mm wide! As it happens I already had an etching done by Russell Flint of a house in Dinan with a similar narrow staircase done in the 20's so it was a sort of deja vu. We bought it on the spot and have since spent about 5 times the purchase price on work! Many of the doors are extremely narrow and low as the Bretons were very small at the time. To move furniture we have to take it right out of the house and right round the village square. We are within 50 metres of a bar, post office, restaurant, phamacie, epicerie, boulangerie and a doctor's. We have a meat lorry once a week, a fish lorry twice a week and a bio vegetable stall once a week, all right outside our door. Callers are frequent. The mayor is a communist. Like in many villages there were abominable things in the war. The village priest was shot by the communists, many resistance were shot or disappeared and the RAF bombed the village killing many locals but no Germans. We are in beautiful countryside in the Park Natural d'Armorique. The hunt starts toorrow so we are taking cover. Usually somebody gets shot. In the next village a Dutchman was killed by mistake last year. We are about 30 minutes from the fabulous Breton coast. Vive la France! Vive la Bretagne! It beats Tooting Bec , Brian, especially at this stage in my life!
Donna there was another Commanderie in a village called La Feuillee not very far from us.
So far, you all seem to have bought quite historical houses. Ours was only built in 1924. It’s a typical farmhouse of the region. The whole upper floor, which we’ve converted into 5 more rooms, was a grain loft, with a “loophole”, where they hauled up the grain. When we got to work, there were kernels of whest still in the floorboard joints. In the late 50’s, there appears to have been a campaign to attract new blood into the area. The family we bought from arrived from Deux Sevres in 1959 and we bought in 1995.
Twice, people belonging to the family who moved out in 1959, have turned up. A woman who moved elsewhere was now retiring to the area, and was showing her husband where she was born. We invited her inside, and she cried. Overall, we have some 14 rooms (including bathrooms etc) for just the 2 of us, and for when our fsmily visit. She said that, during her childhood, there were just 4 rooms for 8 people. The toilet was the back field and she remembers walking 200 metres with a yoke and 2 buckets to collect water from a well which is on our neighbours land, but which, as far as I know, we still have rights to.
A year later, an elderly guy and a younger one stopped, Lycra clad, on their bikes in front of the house, and sat there chatting and pointing. It turned out, after we poured them a beer, that he was the brother of the first woman, and was showing his Italian son in law where he was born.
So, apart from a plaque saying “1924” on the wall, we have no real history of the house, but we gleaned quite a bit from these visitors.
We have a farm that was built from the ruins of a fort. All of the land was sold off (they nice old ladies gave the tennant farmers plots when this was done, the daughters still live in the hamlet) and the buildings used as a chicken farm. The previous owner plundered or burnt everything he could between agreement to purchase and the sale going through (he crushed the terracrete floors for hard core and was very annoyed when told how much it was worth!) so we have very little to go on other than the wonderful fireplaces in the most obsure places. We know the age of the various buildings and the recent history but are struggling to find out about the original chateau, the footings can be found on the hill above but there does not seem to be any other information. Would love to know and will keep searching.
I've been trying to find out the history of my house for several years but it is difficult to piece it all together.There are three main buildings.The house we live in which is an old farmhouse for which I have found evidence that it existed in 1808(plans cadastres).There is another house which is obviously older.And then there is another building.It's not a house nor a barn,stable etc.Our neighbour who used to live in our house when she young (she is now 70ish)refers to this building as "the old or former chapel"!!!The lane on which we live on is known by the locals as "la route de bon dieu noir"!!!!I've been trying to find out about this good black God but to no avail.One day when I was tidying up in this building I found an old coin/medal.It's quite big,about 3 cms diametre with a picture of a pope,dated 1867 and some latin inscriptions.It's not a money coin.I did some research into this pope who is pope Pius IX.He was forced to retreat from Rome by radicals led I think by Garibaldi and French troops were sent by Napoleon III to reinstate him.I'm sure the walls of my house have many stories to tell........
My house was never quite finished as during the war the Germans took the owner/builder away and he never returned. There are burnt out houses nearby which I understand the Bretons burnt to stop the Germans using them. There used to be a famous Chapelle here, people came from far and wide to visit, but now there are just large pieces of stone distributed around the village. Coaches of school children come to see the hamlet, but I'm not sure exactly what they are coming to see.