Ferme au lieu-dit Pissebas

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

To this day, the oldest mentions of the place-name Pissebas date from the end of the 17th century. Nevertheless, old building fabric is well preserved on the south-east plot which is itself divided into two parts. The north-west part (at the centre of the present built ensemble) corresponds to a dwelling predating the middle of the 16th century. Samples taken from the two ceilings as well as from the roof structure timbers made it possible to obtain a series of dendrochronological datings: two successive building campaigns carried out around 1488 and in the years 1509-1510. A second similar dwelling appears to exist to the north-west. The architectural characteristics of the present north-west main dwelling make it possible to identify a homogeneous ensemble of the 19th century, probably rebuilt after 1824 at the location of the two-storey dwelling dating from the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century which was then destroyed. Several of the present built plots appear on the 1824 cadastre. The footprint of the main dwelling has not changed since that date.

Description

The double dwelling consists of two building ranges on the same alignment, separated by a party wall in masonry. The north-west dwelling presents a main façade with bays, flanked to the west by a dovecote in half-projection. Built in limestone rubble stone, with ashlar quoins, the masonry is still covered with lime render associated with bands painted white. The distribution of openings on the façade reflects the internal layout: two rooms on the ground floor; bedrooms distributed on the upper floor on either side of a central corridor and a quarter-turn stair with two straight flights. The earlier vestiges are better preserved at the level of the south-east dwelling: they allow identification of a limestone rubble structure from the very end of the Middle Ages, later remodelled, raised and enlarged. Four barns or barn-byres are distributed on either side of the access path, within plots delimited by dry stone walls. At the centre of the ensemble, on the edge of the path, are located a kitchen garden enclosed by walls and a threshing floor cut out of the rock. The courtyard arranged in front of the double dwelling is bordered to the south by a cabin or hen-house-gariotte of circular plan, raised on two levels with a roof made of limestone slates, and by the ruins of a small elongated dry stone building. An oven, also built in dry stone and covered with flat tiles, is preserved to the south of the ensemble. The two barn-byres built in the 1830s present a similar structure: in both cases, a vast ground-floor building with roof space above, built in squared limestone rubble and covered with a roof of two long slopes and half-hips in flat tiles, contains a byre and a store surmounted by a barn-hay-loft accessible by an access ramp. The other barns, more recent, possess a roof structure with principal rafters and curved tie-beams, one of which probably displays reused curved struts. A pig lodge associated with an enclosure completes the ensemble to the north of the dwelling. A water reserve is excavated in the rock between the two barn-byres and supplied by the rainwater downpipes of the latter. A cloup or circular depression surrounded by piles of stones (cayrous) extracted from the surrounding fields is still visible to the south of the oven. Accessible by a path, this circular space was cultivated and protected from pests by the cayrous.