First place we were taken to was deep in the woods at the back of Gouttieres and we uncovered some old machinery. It dates from the turn of the 20th Century and is in fact some pithead gear - a winding frame of sorts and a steam engine to power it.
St Eloy is well-known for its coal mines and as the quest for fuel was intensified at the end of the 19th Century they started to sink shafts at the peripheral edges of the valley. They struck a good seam at Youx and Montjoie and so they followed it right through to the edge of the plateau where the valley opens out into the valley of the Sioule.
Early indications were promising and several mines were sunk in the area between Gouttieres and Lapeize. A great deal of investment was made in the area, with farmland divided into tiny plots for housing for the workers but all hopes were dashed as the coal quite literally turned to dust. The pits that were sunk lasted not even a handful of years before it was discovered to be uneconomical for the coal to be raised in sufficient amounts. Even the massive "Puits Michelin" at Lapeize lasted no more than 5 years and the huge area set aside for a slag heap is no more than about 20 feet high.
We visited the site of 3 or 4 mines and even found an outcrop of surface coal.
After a stop for iced water we went to look at the quarries at Lapeize. The area is famous for the "gres de Lapeize" - a hard silty millstone grit type of rock with a close affinity to sandstone and there are 5 major outcrops in the Lapeize area. These have been quarried for centuries, if not millennia, and many important buildings in the area, including the Chateau de Pionsat, are made from the stone.
They closed down just prior to World War II but some kind of desultory attempt was made to restart them but it was doomed to failure. But in 1970 one of the quarries was bought (for a pittance) by a man from St Georges who was going to build a hotel there and he needed the stone.
Now Krys told me to look out for fossils (I suppose she meant something other than my fellow walkers) but never mind that - the guy who bought the quarry took a wartime American GMC truck - 6-cylinder petrol sidevalve - into the quarry. And people say that it was fitted with a mechanical crane to scoop up the rock. And one day he simply stopped coming and his truck is still there.
So I had a good nosy around it. It's been robbed of many parts but its major components are still there. And it's not a mechanical bucket on the back, it's a mechanical prodder-type of ram-type of drill for breaking the stone off the wall and into manageable chunks.
Still, hottest day of the year so far - 34.5 degrees and the heat exchanger went off the scale - the first time since 6th August last year. And it got off to a bad start. Being a Bank Holiday I was planning on a lie-in but not one but two phone calls shortly after 09:00 knackered that idea.
And it's still warm now. It reached over 27 degrees in here even with all of the windows open and as I type - at 01:40 with all of the windows open and a pleasant breeze blowing in, it's still 24.7 degrees. Summer has well and truly acumen in. Lude sing cucu, hey what?
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