“What would people have done before? Would they have painted the stones?”

We were standing in the living room, admiring the newly re-pointed stone walls. Our builder looked confused for a moment.

“No, before the stones wouldn’t have been left showing at all, that’s a modern thing. The wall would have been rendered and plastered and then regularly painted with a lime wash or distemper which also had antiseptic properties.”

It brought home to me that many of our ideas about how we wanted the house to look were based less on historical accuracy and more on a modern conceit. What we fondly imagine as old-fashioned charm is in fact a nostalgic reinvention only possible in a world where light and heating are available at a flick of a switch and the walls aren’t covered in soot.

For a truer picture of the rural life of yesteryear, a place like La Maison des Traditions in Chassignolles is not a bad place to start. I first came across this agricultural museum on one of our ‘Fête quests’, when I spotted posters for a Foire d’Agriculture Traditionelle. Off we went on a glorious summer’s day, full of optimism only to find on arrival that the opening times had changed. (Mmm … you could write a whole feature on French opening hours!) We persevered, returned at the new time and paid the three-euro entry fee to gain access into what had clearly been a farmyard with a brand new museum alongside.

Opposite, there was a traditional farmhouse, single storey with a grain store above. Its bread oven was lit and volunteers were cooking trays of gallettes. Everyone was dressed in period costume – sometime in the mid –nineteenth century when black was ’de rigeur’. In the farmyard there were some traditional skills being demonstrated: a beekeeper, basket weavers and a farrier. Behind the farmhouse there was a large field. In the centre of the field was a makeshift pond where more black-clad women demonstrated the Herculean task of open-air laundry day with cauldrons set on small stoves to heat the water and lots of scrubbing on washboards at the water’s edge. Thank God for Hotpoint, Zanussi and the appliance of science, I say.

All around the edge of the field there were stalls celebrating and demonstrating rural skills: there was beer making, furniture restoration, rope making and balloon bending … ok, not balloon bending. In one corner some old countrymen were demonstrating the art of hand threshing wheat using a flail. The compere – who was wandering amongst the crowds with a microphone giving an enthusiastic running commentary of events, urged the young to learn this ancient skill from their elders so as not to lose the art. A brave young man stepped forward and waved the flail a few times, but you could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Three musicians, also dressed in period costume, milled amongst the crowds playing local tunes on accordions and a hurdy-gurdy. I was surprised at one point to hear them break into an unmistakable refrain of “Roll out the barrel” – which I was unaware was a traditional Limousin ditty.

On the lower part of the field there were more hands on demonstrations of past farming methods: on one side wheat was being cut by scythe and on the other two enormous oxen were harnessed to a cart piled high with wheat sheaves. They were manoeuvring the cart next to an early mechanised threshing machine. The ox-handler encouraged the animals into position by none too gentle taps on their muzzles with a stick. They blinked reproachfully but eventually shuffled back. These animals were huge, the tractors of their day, they must have literally weighed over a tonne apiece. Once they were in the correct position, a man high up on top of the cart began to throw down the sheaves to be fed into the clanking, steam engine driven machine. The ox-handler gave each of his beasts a fondle on the muzzle and they stood placid and still as onlookers and young children came for a closer look in the chaff-laden air.

My mind briefly wondered what would happen to the man fifteen feet up on the cart, the ox-handler, the small children or any one of us spectators were these huge animals to take fright at one of the milling dogs or take insult from a sudden, untoward action by an ignorant tourist. The ensuing devastation would make headlines in ‘La Montagne’ – “OXEN RUN AMOK – DOZENS TRAMPLED”. Where were the barriers, the marshals, and the risk assessments? But this is France, they do things differently here and no one seemed concerned at the potential mayhem. I wandered across to the other side of the field to watch a demonstration of a horse-drawn scythe; one man controlled three grey Percherons harnessed abreast while a whirl of scythes cut a swathe through the field, a sight halfway between Ben-hur and Bouddicca.



We had enjoyed our day out and wanted to come back on a non fete day to explore the museum further. A few days later, we returned at two in the afternoon but were unsurprised to find it opened at two thirty. Finally, the doors opened and we paid the four-euro entry fee. Although I handed over the cash reluctantly I was quickly impressed by the quality and quantity of the exhibits. Upstairs there was a mock up of an old classroom with rows of faded school photos of little boys in smocks and clogs and little girls staring intently into the lens. There was of course the one child who had been unable to sit still for the length of the exposure and who was now immortalised as a Lucien Freud-like head.

Downstairs there was a large barn filled with antiquated farming machinery and beyond that an auditorium showing a film about the old farming methods. We watched it through, glad to be out of the heat and glad we didn’t have to labour so intensively. It had been filmed in the yard outside and using the farmhouse. The actors were all volunteers from the commune of Chassignolles – a permanent testament to a vanished way of life by those who had lived it. All the participants were in their sixties at least and perhaps no longer up to some of the manual tasks their were demonstrating. Yet the old actions, scything, ploughing, raking, loading, carrying and stacking were such familiar actions they were hardwired into their bones even decades later.

Outside again, we walked around the yard and peered into the blacksmith’s shop and the clog maker’s before finally stepping through the door of the little farmhouse that so reminded me of our own house. A local volunteer was on hand to show us round and answer all our questions. So much of the layout made sense when you saw it furnished, the old cauldron hanging over the grate on one side of the fireplace and the bread oven on the other, a ‘modern’ cast iron range placed alongside with its flue connected into the side of the chimney. The original ‘tommettes on the floor had been replaced with ceramic tiles by the last family to live there but many of the original features remained. Above the table in the centre of the room hung two electric lightbulbs under white glass shades which you could pull down closer, to make best use of the meagre light. Against the far wall there were two of the traditional wooden beds piled high with feather eiderdowns to keep the bitter cold at bay. The walls were plastered and painted white and the rudimentary kitchen equipment hung on a wooden frame. It was a sobering thought that up to three generations would have shared this living space at any one time.



We left the house and spent a few minutes in the charming cottage garden alongside. Amongst the flowers and vegetables I noticed a plant I didn’t recognize, low growing with succulent leaves, it had hanging seed-pods like poppy buds. I bent down for a closer look. The volunteer’s sudden cry of’ “Watch out, Madame!” came too late, for no sooner as I had reached out to touch one of the pods than it exploded violently and spat a jet of plant juice and seeds in my face. Startled, I reeled backwards and spun away from the attack only to step right into the middle of the deadly patch – it was like being under enemy fire, the ripened pods exploded all around me and all I could do was to cover my head with my hands and endure the onslaught. Finally the bombardment subsided and I was able to open my eyes to find Tom on the ground laughing so hard he looked in pain and even our most polite guide was struggling to keep a straight face.

“They are called ‘Concombres d’Anes’ (Donkey’s Cucumbers)”, she explained surreptitiously wiping away a tear.

“Are they edible?” I enquired, picking sticky seeds out of my hair.

“Oh no, in fact they can be quite toxic”, she said airily, leading us out of the garden. “I don’t quite know why we have them.”

I do.

I suspect that, after saying goodbye and going back into her office, our guide gleefully added a little Union Jack to her trophy wall!


For more information: La Maison des Traditions, Chassignolles