History of the Valayans hamlet

The town of Pernes-les-Fontaines is rich in a large territory. It is urbanized in a small part by the city of Pernes but also by the Hameau des Valayans, located 8 km away!

The land on which the Hameau des Valayans was built was in the 15th century an unhealthy swamp called the “Basses Paluds”. The word “Paluds” refers to a swamp. However, a community of monks settled there and managed to dry up these lands by imagining a network of canals. The soils proved to be rich and suitable for cultivation.

Thus, in the 19th century, a church was built dedicated to the Virgin and entirely decorated with shimmering frescoes. It has been listed in the supplementary inventory of Historic Monuments since 2014. As elsewhere, as early as 1860, the industrial synthetic dyeing process began to roll up all the activity based on madder. The valayannese, persevering, have turned to other trades and other cultures such as psyllium, a plant with healing properties. Today, the Hameau des Valayans is recognized for its vegetable crops and produces, among other things, golden apples and asparagus.

As early as the 17th century, some Pernese moved to live on these newly appreciated lands. One of the first families to settle there was called “Valayan”, it gave its name to this place. The Hameau des Valayans really developed in the 18th century. Rice was first cultivated, then tobacco, saffron, aromatic plants, market garden products and madder. It is mainly the latter that has made the Valayannese people prosper. An entire economy, from the cultivation of the madder plant to the export of powder with dye properties, has developed. Little by little, the inhabitants built the buildings necessary for their development.

More historical information on this hamlet by clicking here!

Book - Volume 1: 'What was it like before? History of old schools and schoolchildren in the hamlet of Valayans, 1860-1960'

The school! We have all been there, we have spent the time of our youth and we have extraordinary memories engraved in our memory, with the smells of chalk, ink, with the screams at recess, with the fears in front of a multiplication table or a rule of three. We played marbles for the boys, hopscotch or jump rope for the girls, knucklebones, and dodgeball. There we learned, in addition to calculation, dictation, writing, writing, the history of France, the history of France, geography, grammar, singing and poetry, living in groups, the equality of social classes with our gray coats, respect for the master and even admiration because, for us children, he represented total knowledge. And then, there were the good points, the awards ceremony, but also the punishments, the picket, the hundreds of lines to write “I must not speak in class” for the most talkative. All these memories, which are part of our heritage, Ms. Fahrner wrote with a sergeant-major pen dipped in the white earthenware inkwell and dried with pink blotter or billboard. This book, which she wrote with passion, by interviewing all the elders of the hamlet of Valayans and by amassing extremely rich documents, will transport you into this world of childhood in the 19th and 20th centuries, a world that you can also discover by visiting the old-school museum in the Valayans' town hall, a work of the Valayans and in particular of the author of this book and Mr. Gérard Cartier. May these pages help you experience the school life of your ancestors!

On sale at the Pernes-les-Fontaines tourist office/243 pages/20€/Author: Térèse Fahrner/By check or cash/No distance selling

Book - Volume 2: 'Over the past time... Local life in the hamlet of Valayans from the 18th to the 20th century'

Discover this book, born with the complicity of successive generations of solicited Valayannais, who took up the game to reunite the threads of a memory that is still alive. The author has chronologically traced the history of local life through various documents: family and municipal archives, photographs taken out of the old boxes, old postcards...

On sale at the Pernes-les-Fontaines tourist office/340 pages/20€/Author: Térèse Fahrner/By check or cash/No distance selling

Book - Volume 3: “Over the past time... Local life in the hamlet of Valayans from the 18th to the 21st century, complementary memories'

There was so much to say about local life at that time, so the author went over all those who still had a small piece of their history in their memories, a story from another time, to complete his volume 2. This volume 3 was “written because of the omissions noted with regret”: discover new archives and numerous photos, all accompanied by historical comments.

On sale at the Pernes-les-Fontaines tourist office/233 pages/20€/Author: Térèse Fahrner/By check or cash/No distance selling