THE OLD WALNUT FARM

Chassaignes   Dordogne   France

Gite Holidays in the Dordogne


History

It is here, in the Dordogne, where some of mans earliest known attempts at graphical (written) communication (a trait the French have so richly maintained ever since) have been found - the cave drawings at Lascaux and Grotte De Villars - dating back some 17,000 years.

Fast forwarding several thousand years we find France (Gaul) conquered and incorporated into the Roman Empire. Signs still remain today; church (Eglise) architecture is pure Roman; the standard Roman 'straight' road is the (actual) base for many current roads; and there are the remains of many types of buildings.

One of those buildings, and well worth visiting, is the focus for an award winning museum. The Vesunna Gallo-Roman Museum is located in the heart of the ancient city of Perigueux - it's self founded by the Romans in the first century AD - near the Tour de Vésonne and the late Roman Empire ramparts. The Museum houses the remains of a grand Gallo-Roman residence, adorned with painted plaster work, known as Domus de Vésone.

For Chassaignes, that Roman influence can be seen in it's own church, Eglise Saint-Jean-Baptiste, consecrated in the year 1100 and still continuing services today.

Churches have always played an important, if not the most important, role in local affairs, and not just for religious reasons - many of them being fortified providing a refuge for villagers in times of violence (which for France was quite often), and as a consequence form the centre piece of so many Dordogne villages.

Nearby

As far as the current buildings of the Old Walnut Farm are concerned, we have only managed to reach back a few decades, believing that the earliest were constructed around 1800 - first as two separate farms, later becoming one, sometime around 1950.

One anecdote recently related to us concerned the pig sty. During the Second World War this particular area of France had fallen to the German Army and all young French men were being shipped to Germany to work on the war effort as enforced labour. The Chadafaud family sheltered many of these young men who dissappeared into the old Double Forest at the approach of the German troops. For their upkeep they built the pig sty.

Many of the problems experienced in English farming find similarities here; the pressure to intensify production; the young drawn to less exhausting, but more 'rewarding' opportunities in the cities; the effects of foreign imports etc.

With successive generations the offspring finding employment away from the land the farm began to shrink until the family retained only an interest in walnut production. Today, the farm still has over eighty productive walnut trees set in three acres of it's own grounds, surrounded by lands once part of the farm.

With two farmhouses, four barns, one large open hangar, an abris and a bread oven, the farm has come through the last century virtually intact. Chez Valentin and Tulipe (surnames of the families who were neighbours when the farms were still separate) are the farmhouses.

Close by

The farm is separated somewhat from the village of Chassaignes by a ‘lane’ of some 300m, the nearest building being the 12 century Church (Eglise) mentioned earlier.

By the way - on the arial view we are on the extreme right hand side among the walnut trees. The other sides face open countryside comprising mainly of open fields and trees in almost equal order. The terrain could be described as rolling.

Chassaignes itself sits on the valley edge of the River Dronne, between the market town of Riberac (15 min. away) – the busy market town for the area - and the ancient village of Aubeterre (10 min. away) - a member of the ‘100 Most Beautiful Villages in France’, with the Dronne flowing through both.

On the southern edge of the valley begins the ancient Forest of the Double, still extending over a 1000 square miles.