Springtime !

Our barn was built originally in 1789 – I think. We make this judgement based on the slightly shaky inscription in the stone lintel above the window on the south side, this was probably made by the original maçon who almost certainly couldn’t write so shaky numbers are understandable. Certainly the building is shown on the Cadastre  Napoléon (=Land Plan) drawn up in the early years of the nineteenth century. Of course we’ve no idea who the original builder was or much at all about the history of the property. La Basse Cour means “the lower court” in French and more colloquially usually means the poultry yard (often of a farm or chateau).  There’s even a mixture of poultry food on sale in the local Gamm Vert called “Mélange La Basse Cour”

There isn’t obviously a chateau or upper farm that we were the lower court for – although there was a chateau just along the road at Grand Carné. Nothing remains of this building although a house locally is called La Chapelle de Carné and the Grand Carné farmhouse has a rather grand bastide look to it.

We are, however, the lowest house in the area and our land sits below a field and a 5 metre talouse (bank). One of the attractions of the property when we bought it was the spring that rises at the edge of our land. It has water all through the summer and will become a mainstay of our garden irrigation this coming summer. But now it’s winter and Brittany had a heavy rainstorm earlier this week before I came back. So now we have a very wet terrain and the open dutch barn has developed a pool where I was planning to make my timber handling area. At least, I thought it was a pool. Now I’ve looked at it carefully I can see that it’s actually a small spring as the water is flowing gently out of it and across our driveway and this is happening at several places along the driveway above the house. This water then runs down along the wall of the barn and eventually out into the field. Now, if you remember your geography you’ll know about springlines where springs appear at the same level along the slope. So my barn pool is really a seasonal spring – that could cause problems for my proposed sawmill area let alone the subsequent refurbishment of the barn walls.

I think if I had been here in 1789 I’ve have got the builder to put the barn somewhere else (La Haute Cour)! Yet another thing I have to talk to M. Palou the architecte about when I meet him next.