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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Granges form a medieval architectural complex located at the place known as the eponymous, on the commune of Vielmur-sur-Agout (Tarn, Occitanie). Although material traces attest to its occupation in the 13th and 14th centuries (expertized murals), its construction could go back to the 11th century, in connection with the Benedictine Abbey of Notre-Dame-de-la-Sanhe founded in 1028. This abbey, the manager of lands and barns in the Viscount, could have integrated the site into its agricultural and religious domain. The buildings, marked by a north-west tower and a frescoed chapel, underwent subsequent renovations, including a division of the chapel in the 19th century.

The chapel preserves frescoes of the 13th-XIVth centuries, of which a scene of the Resurrection of Christ on the wall is made on a plaster of lime. These paintings, covered by successive layers, bear witness to the spiritual importance of the place. The ground floor housed two stables, while the floor combined a house and the chapel, accessible by a pan-wood courtyard. An archery and a 80 cm thick defensive wall (stone and mortar) suggest both an agricultural, religious and potentially protective function.

Ranked a historic monument by decree of 20 March 2023, the house of the Granges is now threatened by an advanced state of degradation. The site hosts the association La Vie Moyenageuse, which organizes historical reconstructions to enhance this heritage. Its rescue requires urgent restoration, underlined by media calls such as that of the Diary of Here in 2021. The absence of detailed sources on its precise history leaves uncertainty about its exact origins and its architectural evolution.

The Notre-Dame-de-la-Sanhe Abbey, founded in 1028, played a central role in the region: in 1260, 25 monks administered its property under the authority of the Abbess. The Barns may have been one of its monastic barns, places of storage and agricultural production scattered throughout the city. These structures, typical of the medieval economy, linked the abbeys to their land exploited live or by dependent peasants.

Architecturally, the site illustrates the Roman-Gothic transition: the angle tower, the cladding arches of the lintels, and the torchi hurdles mixed with cooked bricks reflect medieval techniques. The frescoes, painted with fraesco or lime, follow religious iconographic canons of the time. Their degradation, coupled with that of structures, endangers a rare testimony of rural and monastic life in Albigeois in the Middle Ages.

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