CHRISTOPHER A LONG - An Archaeological Study of Le Boquet, Pont-Farcy, France

Le Boquet, Pont-Farcy, Normandy, France

Archaeological Observations (2010 onwards)

A study of a small ensemble of houses and agricultural buildings built between the C15th and C19th on five hectares of land in the Bocage Virois. This is a rare example of a Normandy hamlet (village or hameau) which remains almost intact and remarkably untouched by the effects of C20th and C21st agricultural 'improvements'.

by Christopher Long

Le Boquet Project Images

Le Boquet Study Images

An Enigma | Phasing Le Boquet Hall | Phasing Conclusions | Ancillary Buildings | Le Boquet Village | Le Boquet House

Old Hall Enigma

he building we call the Old Hall is a puzzle. Looked at from the west it appears to be nothing more than an early, well-proportioned and well-built farm building – perhaps a C16th barn of some sort.

Seen from outside

Looked at from the east it is clearly a habitation with two primitive windows set into a badly built east wall, also containing an exit from an internal sink (un évier).

Looked at from the north, the gable end wall was clearly built to contain the surviving chimney (top missing) and two light embrasures set high on either side of the flue.

By local standards of the C16th-19th, this is a large, well-proportioned building. Its walls cover a footprint of about 81 sq. metres and consist of at least four separate styles of masonry under what had once been a thatched roof.

In 2010 the lateral walls supported three frames. One of these had had its truss cut out and had been set at an angle so that a new steel sheet roof could be shaped to resist the westerly winds. The walls are almost 100 cms thick at ground level.

Puzzlingly, on the eastern side no attempt has been made to key the lateral wall into the chimneyed gable end wall.

On the western side, a half-hearted and 'bodged' attempt has been made to key a few stones of the lateral wall into the chimneyed gable end wall. These 'joints' have now nearly all fractured.

The northern half of Old Hall

In 2010 the northern half of the Old Hall consisted of a living room (known locally as the maison) which had clearly at one time covered the entire floorspace until the time when the room was divided in two.

The chimney breast sat on a large oak mantle, supported by a pair of oak corbels on each side, set over what appeared to be an 'original' hearth, laid flush with the earthen floor and paved with flagstones almost certainly obtained from a nearby Roman road.

The corbels and mantle had been set back into the wall (see chamfer misalignment under the hood) so that they protruded less into the room. This arrangement may indicate that the mantle and corbels were imported from elsewhere, or that if the gable wall was rebuilt, they were re-used and re-positioned. In any case they accord well with the masonry and the hood around them. Nevertheless, the full depth of the hearth is not covered by the mantle.

Almost certainly the hearth predates chimney gable wall, the two not being correctly aligned with each other. On the other hand the remains of a line of wall footing, just visible to the east side of the hearth, is perfectly aligned and at a right-angle to the hearth, probably representing the original line of a primitive gable wall contemporary with the hearth and built either of timber or stone.

Above the chimney hood, on either side of the chimney flue two decorated corbels survive at the level of the roof-plate, but confusingly they are set at different levels, indicating nevertheless that the original ceiling was approximately flush with the tops of the lateral walls. Consistent with this, the sloping hood of the chimney flue was covered in a decorative clay render (probably white-washed) which stops at the roof-plate level.

Above these two corbels are two unglazed light embrasure on either side of the chimney flue set higher than the roof-plates but these too are confusing since they are also set at different heights (and sizes), but no doubt intended to provide light to an area that was once open to the roof. There is plenty of local evidence to show that attic spaces such as this were used to accommodate maids' quarters and/or dovecotes.

Note that today's chimney gable wall is not keyed into the eastern lateral walls and only rudimentarily into the western lateral wall where the linking stones have mostly fractured.

The southern half of the Old Hall

The southern half, accessible today via a small internal doorway set into a timber partition (and accessible from outside via its own tall, external doorway) consists of a large, raised 'grange' with a beaten-earth floor (terre battue) and a high ceiling which, well into the C20th, was still being used by men armed with flails to separate the grain from chaff at harvest time. However, the wall which retains this raised area – and on which the partition sits – is not keyed into either of the lateral walls and appears to be of more recent construction.

In order to 'understand' this building we need to know whether the gable wall was built before or after the western lateral wall. If the gable was built before the lateral wall, the likelihood is that a habitation was intended but that it was abandoned before completion and that the gable was simply incorporated into a subsequent farm building which was, in turn, later transformed back into a habitation (see arguments below). But id this were the case, we have to explain why a Gallery (solar) was apparently built over the southern half of the site.

If the gable wall, with its chimney and fireplace, was built after the construction of the western lateral wall it would seem that the gable end of a relatively early farm building was demolished, rebuilt and that the eastern wall was then (or more likely later) converted in one or more stages to provide light for the interior.

Although it may have been built in the C16th, this building could well have been abandoned for some time as a consequence of the devastation and rural depopulation caused by the plague years of the C17th. In any case, it was certainly converted for use as a habitation in perhaps the late 18th or early C19th. At this stage the open ground floor space was divided in two unequal halves by a timber partition.

However, in order to provide some light into the room, one or two windows were at this stage introduced (there were certainly two by the C20th). Fortunately this rebuilding, which also created more space in the living-room, was badly done using a different stone (schist) and bodged in-filling using clay.

A maison (single habitable living-room) was created in the larger part with the addition of a fire-place and chimney, while windows openings were made which in turn required the removal of the outside stairway. This conversion also involved a substantial oak-timbered ceiling and a oak-framed chimney-breast, although the floor probably remained beaten-earth. The main door into this room remained the former agricultural doorway which, understandably, was reduced in width.

Pictured above, the interior of the former hall showing the partion on the extreme right and windows providing light to the room that was created when the barn was converted into a habitation. To create these windows an external staircase was presumably removed and the wall rebuilt in the late C18th or early C19th. A new internal wall was built against the original northern gable end wall of the former barn to form a fireplace and chimney. The stonework of this wall is not keyed into the older walls, indicating that this was a later construction than the west wall dating from the conversion of the barn into a habitation.

In the other, smaller half of the ground floor, accessible through a small door in the timber partition, was a typical raised grange (barn). This would have served as the working area for storing tools and materials, while its raised ceiling allowing for the hand-threshing of grain in summer. The grange now needed its own tall external door to make the area accessible for cut wheat, barley, etc.

The first-floor level presumably remained a granary until the arrival of dairy farming when the majority of the space would have been given over to the storage of hay and straw for cows during the winter. Grain however would have continued to be grown in smaller quantities for bread-making, feeding chickens, as an additional cash crop in hard times and as a food supplement for cattle.

It seems very likely that this building ceased to be a habitation around the time of the mid-C19th agricultural revolution since there is no evidence of it having been adapted for dairy use. It is likely that its former inhabitants simply moved to the house (abandoned since well before the end of the C20th) about 50 metres to the west which may even have been built at this time.

An attempt at phasing the evolution of the Old Hall

The earliest elements

Let's assume that the Hearth and associated Stone Footings are the earliest surviving elements in the building. The stone footings are situated at the lowest level of construction yet found and they are correctly aligned with the hearth but, significanyly, not with the present Chimney Gable wall.
The Hearth (with paving apparently taken from a Roman Road) appears to be ‘ground zero’ and in 2010 was flush with what was clearly the original Floor level (which presumably once extended over the entire surface of the building, half of which is now inaccessible under the Granary). This was well below the outside ground level on the eastern side but closer to ground level on the western side. Nevertheless the existence of drains (see below) is some indication of levels.
When removing a 20cm-40cm depth of clay from the Floor in 2018, there was no evidence of previous occupation layers, nor of paving. A couple of the Gallo-Roman flag stones (rounded edges from much traffic wear) had been removed from the fireplace to serve as chocks for one of four 1,400 litre cider barrels, still in situ in 2010.
But there were also about 10-15 schist slabs (quite unlike the Roman rounded slabs) which at first glance looked as if they might have been the remains of flooring but which in fact corresponded to the positions of the barrels we found there. These barrels weigh almost two tonnes when full and need sturdy supports to keep the oak staves off damp ground. In any case, there was plenty of patchy evidence of the lime-rich crust to the surface of what had clearly been a beaten earth floor. There was no evidence of a central hearth and no sherds or finds below the superficial first 5cm (see finds conserved).
There was clear evidence of a rudimentary underfloor Drainage system running in two roughly diagonal spurs from east to west across the northern half of the Hall, converging near the doorway and exiting beneath the northern end of today’s Threshold on the western side of the building. There is surviving evidence of three similar drains from the southern half of the Hall as they run through the bottom of the low stone wall that now divides the Hall in two.
There is no evidence for the position or height of any 'original' Main Door which, by local custom, ought to have been in the lateral south-east or south-west corner of the Hall (furthest from the fireplace). The present rudimentary threshold stone (re-used) is probably a fairly recent bodge.

When the Hall was open to roof-plate level…

The Hearth and original Stone Footings were already there.
The later Chimney Gable wall and its decorated Corbels on either side of the chimney flue were already there and probably post-date the Hearth, but why are they at different heights. The sloping Chimney Hood over the mantle has a clay render (once probably lime-washed) which extends just high enough to reach the original roof-plate ceiling level.
The West Wall was certainly there even if it had been built in different stages (NB the distribution of scaffolding putt holes). And confusingly there is Ventilation Hole just beneath the roof-plate in the northern end of this west wall which we normally associate with agricultural use. However, the surviving Corbel Holes in the interior southern end of the west wall (one with a corbel still in place) seem to have supported a Gallery which must already have been there at this stage. (See image right)
The Southern Roof Truss beam was already there. Its top surface has series of holes showing that it once supported the vertical lattice-work wattle-and-daube partition that would have enclosed the Gallery. At its eastern end the same roof truss has finely worked chamfering and a pivot hole on its under side showing that this end of the truss had been the lintel to a doorway from a Hall ladder or staircase into the gallery above. One problem is that this truss beam is too short for the job and has had to be propped up on a block. But, as we shall discover later, this whole eastern wall was subequently rebuilt in at least two stages.
There is no evidence that the Northern Roof Truss beam served any useful purpose in its present position. It seems to be of a similar age and style (e.g. they both use the 'key-lock' system for holding the king-post into the truss) but it has no refinement and it may have been introduced, re-used, much later, perhaps to support the purlins if the gable wall was not deemed sufficient or perhaps even moved from the southern end of the building to the northern end. [NB: The Granary created much later in the space below, was used in the C20th century by carpenters such as Alphonse Hébert and René Cordhomme, for making or repairing roof frames and other roof structures. They might well have introduced this roof truss...]
At this stage there is no evidence for the appearance of any of the East or South walls.

When a ground-floor ceiling was created across the full length and breadth of the Hall…

Two Beams were introduced into the pre-existing West Wall and the ‘broken’ wall shows where they were introduced. The roughly prepared beams and their un-chamfered joists are low grade and at an awkwardly low height, looking far more agricultural than domestic.
The Northern Beam sits on top of the rudimentary Lintel over the West Door and this lintel itself poses many problems (see later).
For an unknown period of time a ceiling with joists now covered the whole of the ground floor. Proof of this lies in three Pegged Joist Ends extending from the southern range of joists into the northern range). At this stage the fixed Ladder or Staircase from the Hall to the Gallery must have been removed.
The Gallery itself must have disappeared at this stage since there would have been no room for it and no access to it. So was Le Boquet still inhabited or had it become a purely agricultural building?
It’s unclear what the Eastern and Southern walls consisted of at this stage. Had there ever been a Main Door other than the one we see today in the Western Wall? Significantly this doorway is wide enough for large ‘700 pots’ (1,400 litre) cider barrels and its width has been altered at least once. Indeed the masonry around this doorway and its awkward Lintel shows radical alterations have occurred. And it’s uncomfortably wide for domestic purposes.

The Hall divided to create a threshing Granary

The next phase appears to have been the creation of a Raised Granary in the southern bay. It would have consisted of a deep bed of large, loose stones that would have prevented moisture rising from the soil below. It was then given a lime-rich Beaten-earth Floor (which we repaired in 2019). In order to have enough height for flails to be wielded for the separation of the grain from straw and chaff, the ceiling in this southern bay was raised by ??? The ceiling survives, well constructed in good quality timber, seated on a new beam that was introduced between the Southern Truss Beam (in the roof space) and the Southern Beam below (at ground floor level). The raised granary was enclosed on its exposed northern side by a Low Stone Wall topped by a high quality Chamfered Timber Wall Plate across the full width of the Hall. And it's clear that the Eastern Doorway (today's front door) is part of this phase too. It's unusually high (to allow large stooks to be tossed from a cart onto the threshing floor) and it's very possible that the entire sandstone South Eastern Wall and Southern Wall were re-built at this stage to accommodate the needs of the Granary. The high quality of this doorway and surrounding masonry, along with that of the raised Granary retaining wall and ceiling, all suggests a large and serious investment. But the big question is this: Was the Granary open to the rest of the once-domesticated Hall? If so, despite its Hearth and Chimney Gable wall, the building was now no longer a domestic house and was being used for purely agricultural purposes.
Today this Wall Plate supports a partition of light-weight planks (nothing like the quality of the wall plate itself) along with a poorly made communicating door, which is amateurishly fixed to Southern Beam above it with strips of wood. This flimsy partition (and its communicating door) was surely not part of the original scheme. Almost certainly the partition is related to the next phase in the evolution of the Old Hall. (See later).

If a large part of the Eastern Wall and Southern Wall were rebuilt to create the Granary, what did they look like before?

We don't know. When Robert Waterhouse did his survey of the building he was astonished to find evidence of what he believed to have been the original timber frame building that our stone-built Hall had replaced. In the far north-east corner of the Hall, at ground-floor level, he found that he could pass his hand through the angled corner into a void. This 'blank' space in the masonry was like a photographic negative, suggesting that at some stage masonry had been erected around a timber post that has now rotted away. Robert speculated that the eastern wall of the building, at least, had once been timber-framed, which was typical of nearly all northern European buildings until the great period of reconstruction in the C15th-C16th. What's more, his theory was supported by clear evidence on the other (exterior) side of the same wall, now situated in the Pig Sty. (see image right)

This discovery is less dramatic than it might sound. For almost 1,000 years the descendants of Germanic peoples, such as the Saxons and Franks, settled throughout north-western Europe, had built themselves timber-framed houses. Oak and elm were plentiful and easy to work. In the Pays d'Auge (upper Normandy) they continued to built houses like this until quite recently. They left us with tens of thousands of mediaeval timber-framed houses throughout southern England and northern France. But in lower Normandy, because of the devastation caused by the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of Religion, the population overwhelmingly chose to rebuild their houses in stone – this being a region especially rich in granite, schist and sandstone. This is why, beneath almost every C16th or C17th century house in Normandy you might expect to find archaeological traces of a timber-built predecessor.

The conclusion may be that at least the eastern side of the building was timber-framed and that it was correctly aligned to form a right-angle with the Stone Footings which, as we have seen, were themselves correctly aligned as a right-angle with the hearth. If aligned in this fashion the Southern Truss Beam in the roof space would not have been too short for the span required. What's more, this would explain why the original masonry of the Chimney Gable Wall ends abruptly 60cm short of the eastern wall it's supposed to meet – 110cm if you include the thickness of the eastern wall itself. In consequence, it was necessary to build a quite separate pillar of masonry 100cm long and over four metres high to accommodate the anomaly. So, the early version of the Hall may well have been a timber framed building on its eastern side when the northern Chimney Gable wall was built, and perhaps even the southern gable wall was built of timber until the Granary project replaced them both. But the question remains, why was this dramatic misalignment of the eastern wall necessary? You can see the distortion in the image on the right...

Other notes and anomalies...

Was the building originally an agricultural structure, converted to a habitation for a period and then abandoned? Or was it a habitation with a hearth, then used for agricultural purposes and then partly converted for use a one-room house and then abandoned?
Where was the original front door? The eastern side seems unlikely given the lie of the land, unless several steps down was considered practical – unheard of as a solution in this area. It does not appear to have been in the western wall since it would be visible today. Doorways were never built
Where was the original service area? Why no sink evacuation?
Why the light recess on southern wall, facing what we know was a pressoir?
Why two light recesses in Granary?

Phasing Conclusion

C19th additions: a chicken shed, a cow shed, a stable, a cart shed, a calf shed, a dairy, a labourer's cottage and bread oven.

The Pig Sty

At some time, in the C19th, a Pig Sty and a Cow Shed were built on to the northern end of the Hall. The pig sty also seems to have served as a chicken shed (see surviving and restored pop holes). Their walls were built of solid clay on stone footings about one metre high. Later still, behind a timber arcade (replaced but preserved in 2023), an open-sided Cart Shed part was added – later partitioned to provide a stable and manger for a horse on the western half.

Pictured right (above), the northern end of the C19th addition to the barn. To the left, the open-sided area was used as a cart shed or 'charterie'. The corresponding area to the right was presumably a horse stable. The arrival of horses on poorer subsistance farms in Normandy, required for working land and pulling carts, dates from the C19th. During the mid-C19th horses replaced cows (or oxen) as the motive power on farms. Simultaneously, specialised breeds of cow such the 'vache normande' were developed and kept for their value as producers of dairy products and beef. This revolution in agricultural practice required new buildings (often constructed of stone and clay) for their accommodation, feeding and milking during the winter. Since cows need to produce a calf each year in order to produce milk, further buildings were necessary for the housing of the calves. A typical farm in Normandy in the C19th and early C20th was thus adapted to house four cows during the winter, as well as housing for at least four calves – hence the construction of a Calf Shed as shown in the picture below.

The Calf Shed

Not far away a Calf Shed was built in the same fashion (solid clay on one metre high stone footings). It was originally divided into two halves by a timber partition (the top and and bottom of which are still visible), each with its own doorway. It seems to have been intended for stabling four calves. In 2010 the wooden attachment points for tethering calves in four corners of this small building were still visible or actually in place. From the similarity of the clay and stonework, it would be reasonable to suppose that the Bread Oven (four à pain) was built at the same time.

The Well

The Well almost certainly dates from the first settlement of Le Boquet. Being the only well on the property and very deep (at 10-11 metres – 35 feet – to water level) no one could have lived on the property without this reliable supply of good quality water. Although its masonry may have been repaired from time to time through the centuries, it is one of the few in the area still equipped with an early timber lifting mechanism, complete with hand-brake. It was almost certainly thatched until the mid C20th and may once even have been covered by the conical stone roof typical of the local tradition.

By November 2016, the rotting timber and rusted corrugated iron roof was in a dangerous condition and needed to be replaced. When dismantling the well-head and the top layer of stonework which held it in position, we found a mason's token: a French 1 franc coin dated 1942 bearing the 'Travail Famille Patrie' slogan of the war-time Vichy state. This clearly shows that the roof structure (as shown right) was erected in 1942.

The chain and roller were still in good enough condition to be re-used in a replacement well-head. In 2022 a corrugated iron 'cap' was built by CAL to stop children falling in. At this stage the well resumed used when a submerged pump supplied water for vegetables.

By the mid-C20th...

The Old Hall and its associated additions were by now being used as general purpose farm buildings by the inhabitants of the house 50 metres to the west. The owner, René Cordhomme, was the village cantonnier who allowed his neighbour in the Boquet House, Alphone Hé to use the granary in the Old Hall as a carpenter's workshop. The workshop on the southern end of the Boquet House may well have been too small and perhaps already dilapidated. Ren&eactute; and Marie, meanwhile, continued to keep two cows on their two hecatres of land, milked by his wife Marie (probably only one when she was widowed).

The former Living Room (maison) in the Barn was by now used only for storing bottled cider and preserved fruit and vegetables. A rudimentary electricity supply had been added (since 1936) to provide some lighting and to feed a refrigerator. The space was dominated, however, by three large cider barrels (1,400 litres each). A pipe led underground from the barrels to the now-disused Bread Oven (four à pain), 50 metres away, where the Cordhomme couple distilled the cider to make calvados. The barrels, pipe and the 'still' remained in situ in 2010.

The domed end of the Bread Oven (this would again have been of clay on stone footings) had disappeared by 2010 (probably after 1945) to make way for an open-air lavatory. However, it remained otherwise substantially complete with the oven doorway simply blocked up. Restoration of the whole structure began in Spring 2011, starting with the rebuilding of the domed oven itself.

The Calf Shed (about 5 square metres) may still have been used for up to four calves (within the unit once divided by a partition), though elderly neighbours in the early C21st remembered that a journalier (occasional labourer) was sometimes housed there "with his wife and children"... presumably just before or soon after WWll. This seems very plausible since a rudimentary fireplace and chimney, made of modern bricks and cement was installled (still in place there in 2010) and human occupation would also explain the removal of the partition.

Le Boquet Village

e Boquet is a typical rural village in the Bocage Virois in Normandy, France. A village in this sense is a group of perhaps four or five houses which once shared communal facilities such as a well (un puits), a dairy (une laiterie), a bread-oven (un four à pain or boulangerie), a cider press (un pressoir) and an open-air washing-place (un lavoir), etc. At Le Boquet four houses remain and only the pressoir, destroyed in the 1999 gale, has not survived.

Le Boquet has certainly been inhabited from at least the late C15th or early C16th, judging by masonry in its earliest surviving building. In October 2016 Robert Waterhouse provisionally identified stonework in the Boquet Old Hall as consistent with at least five phases on construction: C15th, C16th, earlier C17th, later C17th and C18th. The clay/cob northern extension (stable and pig sty) is clearly C19th.

However, the Old Hall bears evidence in the surviving masonry of a previous timber-framed building which would have been entirely typical of the sort of structures that existed throughout Normandy from the time of the arrival of Francs and Saxons and Norman-Vikings through to the C16th period we call the 'great re-construction' when, in this part of Normandy, timber-built houses were almost entirely replaced by more durable stone-built structures. This period of 're-construction' was undoubtedly precipitated by the appalling destruction caused during the 100 Years' War (C14th and C15th) and again during the Wars of Religion (C16th).

Robert Waterhouse's first sketches as we attempted to 'read' the phasing of the Boquet Old Hall from masonry styles. Le Boquet first appears on a map in the C18th/19th Carte de Cassini, as Le Bosquet and marked as a hamlet. Dating and phasing the Boquet Old Hall and the separate Boquet House depend upon a knowledge of the developments and characteristics of local 'vernacular' architecture, scientific study of datable remains such as beams, trusses and joists as well as familiarity with the requirements of the local population as rural life evolved and adapted over a period of five centuries or more. For example, some doors in the Boquet Old Hall and in the Boquet House appear to date from the C17th and C18th. A number other buildings in the group are clearly C19th and date from the agricultural revolution of about 1860 when the arrival of canals and railways allowed dairy farming to replace much arable farming, sheep breeding and cider production.

It is hard to say where the limits of Le Boquet's land were from the C16th to the C18th. New roads and the effects of the commune system introduced after the 1789 French Revolution have altered the administrative landscape. The dark green area in the image above indicates the two parts – Le Boquet and Le Bosquet – as they are today, Le Boquet lying in Pont-Farcy and Le Bosquet in Ste-Marie-Outre-L'Eau, divided by the D306.

Le Boquet might at one stage have consisted of about 10-15 hectares (25-38 acres), lying on either side of today's D306 road. Until any original documents are found one can only work from what the surviving toponyms or lieux-dit) suggest.

The simplicity of the surviving buildings does not suggest a large estate. However, Le Boquet is one of only a handful of specific places in the area mentioned by Cassini – its nearest neighbours being Beauregard, La Clémendière, La Torignière, La Sallière and Le Moulin Hy. It's soil is many metres deep and very rich – comparable loess.

It is unclear where the boundary lay with La Fosse de Bas to the south, whose present farmhouse was certainly built much later. It is also possible that it originally included an area of land to the north-east, near La Noette, lying between the steep 'new' section of the D306 road and the 'old' road (a now disused sunken lane or chemin creux). The reasoning behind this is that before then there would have been no natural boundary prior the construction of the 'new' road.

However this study concerns only the western half of the original area, marked in dark green in the large plan above, which includes nearly all the buildings and which now belongs to the author and his wife.

[Note 1. Most of the D306 road is probably ancient though the steep hill section running within an embankment from the Moulin Hy to Le Boquet was probably built in the late C18th or early C19th. Before then the road presumably followed the old, surviving but now abandoned chemin creux which still represents the boundary between the communes of Pont-Farcy and Ste-Marie-Outre-L'Eau. Communes were established after the 1789 French Revolution to replace parish administration though they sometimes re-defined boundaries. It should be noted that much of the D306 has steep embankments on each side and was probably lowered to make it easier to use. Since at least the early C19th the major part of Le Boquet has fallen within the commune of Pont-Farcy, while the smaller part lay within St Marie-Outre-L'Eau. But for the purposes of the official cadastre the two adjacent villages each continue officially to be called Le Boquet and Le Bosquet respectively. It seems safe to assume that Le Bosquet/Boquet in the C16th and C17th would have comprised the land on both sides of the D306 which itself probably incorporates parts of more ancient local lanes.]

[Note 2: In addition to the D306, a lane once passed through the middle of the village of Le Boquet – parts of which are still visible today. This lane appears to have begun at a cross-roads to the north-east of Le Boquet's Old Hall and then ran past its north-west main door, continuing past the (south-east) front door of Le Boquet House and running south-west through La Sallière. It may even once have extended as far as Le Ménage. It certainly passed the front doors of at least five other houses built in a straight line (in La Sallièe) and had branches leading off across the valley to La Sourcière (a chemin creux which still existed in 2010) and to La Bénouvière (visible in 2010 but no longer accessible). One part of the main lane can still be seen in the plan below, marked as the 'Avenue' and 'Home Field'. Another part in La Sallière is still in use as a road. This lane may have formed part of an ancient by-way from Pont-Farcy to St Vigor-des-Monts. From Pont-Farcy it would have crossed the Gouvette stream east of Le Moulin Hy and climbed to Le Boquet through a chemin creux (this section being still visible but blocked by municipal rubbish). At Le Boquet it would have offered routes eastwards and southwards to La Noette, La Thorinière and La Fosse. From Le Boquet it led on to La Sallière and Le Ménage before heading off, as it does today in the form of a road, to Les Monts, where it crossed a stream and then climbed up to La Recouvière. An alternative road on the western side of the valley followed the ancient Gallo-Roman road, still known as La Pavée, running from Le Moulin Hy via Beauregard to Ste Marie-des-Monts and then on to Villedieu-les-Poêles. Much of this second route was still accessible in 2010 – though most of La Pavée in the commune of Pont-Farcy has been neglected or lost while, once again, a length of it has been blocked by municipal rubbish.]

Today the village of Le Boquet remains remarkably intact. The stone Well, set in what was once an apple orchard, stands at the centre of a group of four houses. It is not known whether the visible stonework above ground is original. Occupying Germans seem to have had a hand in rebuilding the upper courses of the stonework during the 1940s because in 2017 the author found a German coin and a French wartime Third Republic coin deliberately laid in the coursing in traditional memento fashion. [German troops billeted at Le Boquet operated an anti-aircraft battery on the western side of the Boquet House, overlooking the valley which Allied aircraft used when attempting to destroy Pont-Farcy's road bridge at low altitude.] The well's access point faces away from what is presumed to be the earliest building (the Old Hall) and towards what is thought to be a relatively more recent (perhaps C18th and currently abandoned) house.

A Bread Oven is still in situ nearby. It would have been built after the French Revolution allowed peasants to bake bread in their own ovens. Its structure (clay walls sitting on a low wall of stone is typical of the mid-C19th.

Sadly, following severe storm damage in 1999, all that remained of a former pressoir on the southern end of the Old Hall were its foundations which now lie beneath the New Hall built in 2017-2021.

The lavoir, probably shared with the owners on the opposite bank is still visible in a bend in the stream in the valley below.

Elsewhere — though not part of the 'communal' property – are other buildings built of solid clay on stone footings: a small Calf Shed with fittings still in place for attaching four calves which were reared in the dark to be sold as veal.

A similar sized building sitting opposite the Boquet House was designed as a Dairy while to the south-west, a very modest single-room Cottage was inhabited by an elderly woman until the 1950s. She had a simple fireplace and one small window facing west... in addition to a 300 metre walk to the well and back whenever she needed water, carrying it in buckets...

Other such buildings may have disappeared. For example, an almost lost clay-on-stone Workshop atelier attached to the Le Boquet House was being restored in 2010 (though in a straw-bale and timber-frame construction) while in the early C21st there was still clear evidence of the footings of a small building on the north-west side of the Avenue (see map above). At the time of writing the foundations of this little building lie beneath a large wild cherry tree between the Cottage and Le Boquet house.

The Bocage Virois was far from being a prosperous region until the end of the C20th. Granite was used for the coins, doorways, windows and chimneys of most surviving farmhouses from the late Middle Ages until the C19th, but nowhere was expensive granite used at Le Boquet until some C20th improvements were made to the House.

Indeed, even though the land itself is extremely rich, the preservation of Le Boquet as an unimproved C19th farm (even after the introduction of tractors in 1959) may be due to its relative poverty on the slopes of a small valley where much of the land was not plough-able. For this reason too Le Boquet retained many of the most characteristic features of the Bocage landscape, including its flora and fauna. Sadly many magnificent trees, which had survived the 1999 storm, were cut down by René Hébert before he sold the property in 2000/2001.

All the indications are that this modest village had always been at the lower end of the scale as a subsistence farm. It is not known whether Le Boquet (originally perhaps 10-15 hectares) was ever farmed as a single unit although this seems likely given the volume of the Hall which later served as an agricultural building.

Major changes and re-structuring are likely to have occurred following the French Revolution of 1789 and it may be that the property was divided into separately owned parcels at about this time.

[Note 3: Certainly by the mid-C20th it consisted of four separately owned units. To the west of the D306 two areas were farmed separately by the Hébert and Cordhomme families. The eastern side of the D306 was farmed by the Dedieu family and, from the 1960s, by Marcel Scelles). Three fields (about two hectares) at the north-eastern point and along the western bank of the stream) belonged to the neighbouring Gesnouin family (in the village of Le Moulin Hy) separated from the rest of their farm by the 'new' Villedieu-les-Poëlles road which sliced through their land. The remains of a separatelavoir at an artificial bend in the stream within the Gesnouin land suggests that it had been separately owned for some time. Additionally a very small area, beside the main road and surrounded by the Gesnouin land, had been acquired at some stage by a small house across the road. On the other hand, two parcels of land lying in the neighbouring village of La Sourcière (west of Le Boquet), including the valley bottom and its stream, were incorporated into the Le Boquet farm during the C20th.]

Significantly, a small rectangular piece of land lying astride the same stream had 'always' belonged to Le Boquet. The explanation for this is clearly that the natural spring there served as Le Boquet's communal lavoir. Owing to the steep drop to the valley, this would have been the only spot in the vicinity where there was relatively easy access from Le Boquet for anyone carrying a quantity of washing. In 2010 vertical slabs of stone which once formed the edge of the lavoir basin were still clearly visible.

Two of Le Boquet's buildings are of particular interest: the Hall (which in this report will be described as Old Hall) and the nearby principal Boquet House.

Le Boquet House

A 5 metre ladder once hung along the west wall of Le Bosquet supported by a pair of timber stubs, one of which was still in place in 2011.
A hole in the old (lower) masonry north wall, about one metre above the ground and since roughly blocked in by René Hébert, once gave chickens access to the cow shed inside.
A ventilation hole in the west wall near the entrance into the cow shed has been been blocked but its outline remains visible.
The interior of the north wall of the cow shed, rendered prior to 2001 by René Hébert, was badly eroded by cows which had rubbed their bottoms against it for many generations.
Within the cow shed, near the centre of the north wall and about a metre above ground level, was a typical stable 'niche' for a lantern and/or for storage. It was adapted in about 2004 to pass a chimney pipe from a Godin stove through the wall to a vertical stainless steel chimney outside.
Among the 'improvements' made by René Hébert was the destruction of the grange and of its four timber bays. Cows standing in the cow shed, passed their heads through the bays to feed on hay dropped onto the floor of the raised grange from a hayloft above.
Originally the floor of the grange, invariably with a beaten earth floor, would have been at or above the level of the adjacent main living-room (maison) while the floor of the cow shed would have been about 50 cms below this.
There were two ways accessing the grange: either from within the house via a small door immediately behind the front door into the maison (by 2001 this had long converted into a cupboard), or alternatively via a raised external doorway adjacent to the same main doorway (transformed and widened before 2001 to create a French window).
The name grange derives form the centuries during which grain was the principal farm product in this area and teams of men, armed with flails, beat the freshly cut wheat, barley, etc., to separate the grain from the straw. With the arrival of a widespread dairy industry in nearly every local farm in the mid-C19th, the grange served both as a granary in summer and as a manger for cows in winter (as well as a place for storing valuable hand tools and equipment).
The cow shed has had two entrances for allowing cows in and out as well as for removing manure and slurry. At Le Bosquet a low doorway at the northern end of the east facade is still visible although it was blocked up a long time ago. Inset timbers remain visible on either side of the doorway to allow for 'barring' of the doorway. According to René Hébert in 2011, an identical doorway existed on the opposite (western) wall which he enlarged to form a French window. Given the slope of the land, it is likely that the former doorway was used for evacuating manure and slurry.
Prior to 2001 René Hébert created a single living room from the former grange and étable, at the low level of the former étable but water-proofed it and entirely lined it with white tiles. In 2011, C & S Long raised the level of the floor of this room by about 25 cms with timber joists and a timber floor.
In the living room, on the south wall, can still be seen two of the timber corbels that once supported the ceiling of the grange and étable and the hayloft above. At the same level as these two corbels, on the east wall, can be seen the bottom of the original external doorway into the hayloft. This recess survived the rebuilding of the exterior masonry on the eastern facade of the former grange and étable. This rebuilding occurred when the single story building was raised to create living space above. In the last decade of the C20th René Hébert himself replaced a clay (argile) upper wall on the north and west sides with badly laid stone that he had transported from the post-WWll salle des fête from Vaudry. Still visible in the fine quality external western wall stone-work (C16th?) of the grange & étable is a blocked up ventilation hole and one of a pair of timber 'pegs' set high in the same wall on which a long ladder was once hung. Meanwhile a niche for a lantern in the north wall within the étable was used in 2002 to provide an exit through the wall for the flue of a wood-burning stove.

NOTES

On 29-06-2010 The historian and archaeologist Julien Deshayes (Pays d'art et d'histoire du Clos du Cotentin) commented that, in his own Cotentin region, granary barns occupy the ground-floor, needing no stairway access. On the other hand, he says, cider presses (pressoirs) in north Manche have external stairways to an apple store on the first floor. Until more studies can be made and any remaining traces of a pressoir can be found within the principal Le Boquet building, this study holds to the theory of a grain barn as the most likely purpose of the building at Le Boquet, at least until it became a habitation. Julien supplied a fascinating C17th drawing of the manor and farm courtyard layout at Réville (Manche) which supports his point.

External staircases can also be found in habitations. In the Bocage Virois, as in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, the house of a feudal lord (a manor house or seigneurie) was characterised by the presence of an upper private chamber (chambre haute) accessible by a stairway. In larger manors this staircase is internal and in some cases leads up to a first-floor gallery along the lateral wall of the 'hall', thus providing access to the lord's private chamber(s) beyond the end wall(s) of the hall.

In the author's view, the famous 'arras' referred to by Shakespeare was not a tapestry hanging against a vertical side wall but rather a tapestry or woven 'partition' (which the English would naturally have associated with the great weaving city of Arras in northern France, to which they exported wool and which was once their colonial possession) which would have hung between the gallery and the hall floor, thus separating the 'lord's' private space in his hall from a communicating service corridor under the gallery and 'behind the arras'. From behind this 'tapestry or 'arras' the servants might indeed have overheard their lord or king discussing private business. In this respect, Court Lodge (Westerham, Kent, England) provides a perfect example of a C15th or C16th 'seigneurial' layout with a galleried hall that has its exact parallel in Normandy at the same period.

External staircases, at least in the Bocage Virois, appear in small manor houses (sometimes very small), presumably because there would not have been sufficient space within, given the small volume of the 'hall'. The lord's chamber usually sat over a secure storage room containing the family's most valuable assets, stores and possessions. This ensemble is sometimes known as the principle of the 'hall and chamber block'.

The historian and archaeologist David Nicolas-Méry (Ville d'Avranches) has demonstrated a third application for an external staircase in southern and central Manche (Normandy): a staircase leading to a comfortable chamber above a bake house (four à pain or boulangerie). It is believed that this provided an independent and permanently warm room for an ambulant feudal lord while visiting his estates. It must be stressed, however, that there is no remaining evidence at Le Boquet of any building of manorial status. Hence the external stairway in its principal building must be regarded as having met an agricultural need.

Le Boquet Study Slide Show (2011)
Pont-Farcy – Some notes on its history
Traditional methods used in the building & restoration of rural structures in the Bocage Virois (2011)
Patois & The Norman Bocage Today First steps in understanding patois and Norman habits (2002)
Normandy: The Search For Sidney Bates, VC A story of outstanding courage in the Battle of Normandy (2003)
Les Frères Duval et Leurs Aviateurs Americains American airmen hidden in Pont-Farcy in WWll (2003)
Tales of The Magic Wardrobe Explaining histry through strip cartoons (2007)
Mont Saint Michel in Normandy and St Michael's Mount in Cornwall Linking two St Michael's Mounts (2007)
Tonsures, Tin, Bronze and Bells A study of Norman links to the Cornish tin trade (2009)
St Michel, l'Étain et l'Âge des Cloches Talk given at the Archives Départementales, St Lô (2009)
L'Horlogerie Vernaculaire Bas-Normande par David Nicolas-Méry with references to Pont-Farcy (2012)

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