Sites and monuments
Land of stones and stories, Périgord-Limousin conceals a rich cultural and historical heritage, of great diversity and reflection of a thousand-year-old history.
Castles and manor houses bear witness to this fruitful history as much as the vestiges of a very rich industrial heritage. The numerous valleys of Périgord-Limousin favored an economy linked to hydraulic energy and hundreds of mills and forges powered the waterways until the end of the 19th century. Churches and chapels (Périgord-Limousin has a remarkable collection of Romanesque churches) also form architectural treasures on the paths of the Park.
Shaped as much by lifestyle and economic activities as by geology, rural architecture blends harmoniously with the landscape. Whatever the period of construction, this unity is due to the location of the building according to the topography and the use of simple, local materials such as stone, wood and earth.
Several landscape and heritage atmospheres coexist in Périgord-Limousin. The geological richness of the territory is revealed in the constructions of granite, limestone, schist or even a very particular stone born from a unique phenomenon in France (the impact of a meteorite in the Rochechouart region).
Annexes to the Périgord-Limousin house or created here and there for the needs of the activity, the humble “tool architectures” recall the economy of yesteryear. Among them, the clédiers (chestnut dryers) used by the inhabitants of Périgord-Limousin to dry the crops and thus preserve and consume them all winter.
Also, crosses, fountains, dry stone walls punctuate the space, agricultural land and crossroads of Périgord-Limousin. It is in this vernacular heritage that the identity of the territory is inscribed and perpetuated. Religious practices linked to water, in particular the cult of “good fountains”, form one of the strong particularities of the territory.
