Garrigue villages
La Boissière
The village of La Boissière, in the heart of the garrigue area, consists of a collection of small settlements and mas (traditional farmsteads) centred around the parish church of Saint-Martin de Valras, the origins of which may well go back to the pre-Carolingian era. This kind of dispersed settlement suggests that its inhabitants enjoyed a certain degree of independence. They lived by agriculture, husbandry and forestry.
Today we know that the church of Saint-Martin de Valras, together with its churchyard and the income which it provided for its owner, belonged to the lords of Deux Vierges de Saint-Saturnin-de-Lucian. At the very beginning of the 12th century these lords donated the church to the Abbey of Aniane. It is a small-scale historical monument (the total population of all the mas was little more than three hundred people) and its original apse has every appearance of being pre-romanesque: there is no semi-circular apse but a square chevet bounded by four pillars (which appear to be Visigothic).
It is situated outside the village and there is no evidence that it was surrounded by village dwellings but rather just by farmland. The raising of the choir in the 14th century makes it possible to glimpse round arches and keystones. The present-day nave was remodelled during restorations carried out in 1777. In the course of the centuries the church was frequently a cause for concern for the town as well as for the parishioners. There was even some question of replacing it altogether in the 1970s. But they reckoned without the stubbornness and determination of the present-day population who were prepared not only to lend a hand but to put that hand in their pockets as well to save this work of art. And that is how the programme of restoration that was undertaken from the beginning of the 1980s up until 2005- 2006 has now borne fruit. The church today looks as new and beautiful as when it was first built.
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Today we know that the church of Saint-Martin de Valras, together with its churchyard and the income which it provided for its owner, belonged to the lords of Deux Vierges de Saint-Saturnin-de-Lucian. At the very beginning of the 12th century these lords donated the church to the Abbey of Aniane. It is a small-scale historical monument (the total population of all the mas was little more than three hundred people) and its original apse has every appearance of being pre-romanesque: there is no semi-circular apse but a square chevet bounded by four pillars (which appear to be Visigothic).
It is situated outside the village and there is no evidence that it was surrounded by village dwellings but rather just by farmland. The raising of the choir in the 14th century makes it possible to glimpse round arches and keystones. The present-day nave was remodelled during restorations carried out in 1777. In the course of the centuries the church was frequently a cause for concern for the town as well as for the parishioners. There was even some question of replacing it altogether in the 1970s. But they reckoned without the stubbornness and determination of the present-day population who were prepared not only to lend a hand but to put that hand in their pockets as well to save this work of art. And that is how the programme of restoration that was undertaken from the beginning of the 1980s up until 2005- 2006 has now borne fruit. The church today looks as new and beautiful as when it was first built.
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