Labeaume : a village with outstanding character

This village on the edge of La Beaume River is surrounded by cliffs which were once home to troglodyte caves. Its stone houses cling to narrow cobblestones lanes snaking into a labyrinth.
Then over the centuries, the village borrowed this name using different variants (like Balma, La Balme-sous-Sampzon…), "Labeaume" dating from the end of the 19th century.
Nestled against its limestone cliffs, the village of Labeaume appears like an oasis in the middle of the scrub.
The tortuous river that so prettily emphasizes it offers remarkable points of view from the cliffs (roof gardens, marvellous vistas over the village). The rest of the territory forms a plateau made only of limestone formations from the Jurassic period whose deposits are spread out over 170 million to 130 million years, at an elevation between 170 meters to the south and 282 meters to the north. These formations are arranged in strata that can easily be seen in the gorges carved out by the rivers.
A quarry from which the famous Ruoms stone is extracted and a marble works are established in the community. They are the last representatives of a once prosperous activity.