Lakes and peatbogs

The Mill’s Belvedere, on the edge of the valley, offers an overview of nearly all of the Abbaye lake. From here, visitors can learn about how the landscape around the lake has evolved throughout the centuries (interpretive sign).

Easy to recognise, the grey heron can be seen hunting along the edge of lakes and in the marshes in the search for amphibians and fish, or even in the middle of agricultural prairies on the lookout for voles. Like all herons, it flies with its neck bent and its legs outstretched, which sets it apart from storks and cranes. It nests in a small colony, called a heronry.

Since the Middle Ages, monks have used the driving force provided by the lake’s waterfall to work the grinding wheels in the Abbaye’s mill, which was once located where the current sawmill now stands. The water wheel was actioned by a vertical 8-meter-high waterfall. No doubt this first set-up lacked power and a 5-meter dyke was likely constructed to increase the height of the drop and the volume of water in the lake. The lake’s current water level bares no resemblance to its water level during the 6th century; this means it is difficult to locate the original priory. When activity at the mill came to an end (due to a lack of grain to grind!), a sawmill was established on the same site, and turbines replaced the pre-existing wheel. The calm waters in the lake turned into a power source and the facilities that are still in place attest to the different activities that have since developed around the lake. 

In hamlets, adjoining farms were often lived in by the same family (several brothers for example). However, each family was still independent and provided for its own needs. The sobriety of the home’s architecture should not detract from the quality of these constructions: the use of cut stone to frame windows, the quality of the framework, the cut and aged lintels, etc.

A migratory bird, this passerine spends winters in Africa, south of the equator. It only returns to the Jura mountains between mid-May and the beginning of August. The marsh warbler lives in more or less marshy prairies with high grass and scattered with bushes, where the male perches itself to sing. Their nest is made of dry grass suspended at mid-height from herbaceous stems. This species is exclusively insectivore (feeds on insects). The European champion of imitation, a male marsh warbler can imitate 80 species with its song, with the known record to be 212!

The capping on the low dry-stone walls, or crown, maintains and stabilises the sides (visible parts) of the wall. Without it, the stones, and particularly those at the top, would end up falling. Here, you can observe a technique in which large and relatively flat stones, called lauzes, are laid vertically and often stabilised by spacers in between.

More than a place of work or a rudimentary shelter for craftsmen, for those who occupied it, the workshop is a setting that is both intimate and public.
Between the tools used, on the worktops where sawdust is pushed away with the palm of a hand, is where craftsmen build their know-how, by the light shed by the large dusty windows.

The rural house was first the one belonging to the farmer and livestock breed, where men and animals lived together. As from the 18th century, cheese specialisation and the pooling of milk in cooperative structures - “fruitières” - brought farmers out of a self-subsistence economy. In terms of buildings, the farm became bigger: a storey is added to include bedrooms, a second stable is sometimes built to accommodate more animals.