Mas Camargues

The main building is surprisingly grand in both its dimensions and its façade of carefully carved granite blocks under a curved cornice. Historical records mention the prosperous estate of Mas Camargues as early as the 15th century. However, its current configuration dates from the late 19th century, as the date carved into a lintel shows. If you wander through the neighbouring hamlets, you will understand just how unusual this settlement is on the Mont Lozère. Its owners proudly marked the landscape as no-one had dared to do before them…

This was a water-powered mill for grinding grain, mainly rye. Like the vast majority of mills on the Mont Lozère, it had a horizontal  wheel that was easy to put in operation even with a low head of water. It was first mentioned in the 17th century, and last served during the Second World War. Note the “sleeping” millstone on which the “turning” millstone (no longer extant) ground the rye.

This building resembles the mill but had an entirely different function, which is testament to the advanced state of technology in Mas Camargues in the late 19th century. The water supply fell onto and turned a vertical paddle wheel, thus creating more power than the mill. The building only housed the “engine” – the energy produced was actually used outside. Imagine a long belt (a wide strap of leather or woven material) that transmitted the energy to a threshing machine set up on the paved threshing floor outside, which separated grains from chaff.

In a small plot of land enclosed by a low dry-stone wall is a plain gravestone for a little girl who died in 1905. This simple granite slab reminds us of local Protestant tradition. As a result of the 1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (which re-criminalised Protestantism in France), the village cemetery was reserved for Catholics only, and the practice of private Protestant burials became generalised. Some Protestants still choose to be buried in their gardens or fields to this day.

To enable ox-carts and livestock herds to cross the canal, several small bridges were built out of granite slabs. Before the current track was opened up, the path from L’Hôpital to Bellecoste passed through here, upstream of Mas Camargue.

To supply the mills with a sufficient and stable supply of water, a gourgue (reservoir) was laid out using a stone-and-soil levee. A slab with a hole drilled into it let the water flow out. A log with a wooden pole for a handle was used as a cork, ready to be removed whenever milling or threshing were planned. Both upstream and downstream of this reservoir, you can follow the béal, the channel which carries the water from the Tarn all the way to the mills. This system was preferable to using the Tarn’s waters directly, which would have been too dangerous because of the violent floods.

The Mas Camargues landscape is not an unchangeable set, but evolves with land use. In 1813, you would still have seen arable land, fewer pastures and more meadows and gardens, all witnesses to diversified activities. Around 1913, increasing specialisation in livestock rearing, which brought in the largest part of farm incomes, meant that large pastures came to predominate. Tomorrow’s landscape depends on the agricultural choices made. Maintaining livestock breeding is decisive for keeping spaces open; a lack of grazing would lead to an extension first of heath and then of forests.

Here, the béal leading to the mills has to cross a tributary of the Tarn. How to stop the béal water from running off down the steeper gradient with the brook water? A simple soil levee damming the brook has created a sort of buffer pond, from which the waters flow in the two directions in acceptable proportions.

A few metres downhill from Marker 12, you can see the small dam built of large granite blocks placed across the Tarn. This raised the water level, so that some of the water ran into the béal. Water usage, whether for irrigation or the mills, was rigorously regulated. The hours of use and the size of the outflow channel were agreed in detail for every property served.

Peat bogs are of great interest for regulating watercourses, even though they have a rather evil reputation in folklore. They are characterised by particular plant combinations, especially sphagnum, a moss that plays the role of natural sponge.

The riverbed of the upper Tarn is a series of more or less sloping planes divided by waterfalls tumbling over large bars of rock, whose contours the water can only smooth away through slow and laborious erosion. One of these granite bars has here created a basin (gourg), a favourite spot for brown trout.

The pure lines of its arch and the narrow deck are two important elements in giving the least possible hold to the floodwaters of the Tarn. This type of construction has led to the bridge being called “the Roman bridge” in local tradition. However, it was not built before 1850. For the bridge we admire today to have withstood the passage of time and defied the floodwaters of the Tarn since the Roman era would be nothing short of a miracle.