Saturday 8 June 2013

History of Le Petit-Pressigny

We’d seen notices about an exhibition of the history of Le Petit-Pressigny, to be held in the Salle Jules Ferry. We hadn’t known what to expect but we didn’t expect the superb choice of interesting material and attention to detail that was evident. It was mostly the painstaking work of one man but I'm ashamed to say we didn’t get his name. My efforts to find the name have, thus far, proved fruitless. We did ask his permission to take the pics. He’d grouped the work into categories and I’ll just show some snippets here.


There was lots of fascinating information and photographs depicting the 'then', and contrasting it with the 'now'.




Perhaps my favourite bits were a couple of large maps which looked to be hand coloured and annotated showing the village in 1813 and 2013. In 1813 the bridge was wooden and there appeared to be a ford. 




Schools always interest us. We live in an old school and my entire working life has been spent in school!

I can thoroughly recommend the exhibition. If you live close and are interested, today (Saturday) the exhibition will move to the Salle des Fetes, and at 11 am there will also be a ceremony to name a square in honour of Axel Kahn, the celebrated geneticist who was born in the village. M. Kahn will be there to see a new rose named in after him.



The square taken last summer.

I believe there is also to be a vin d'honneur...

9 comments:

  1. Oh goody... a vin-d'honneur!!
    I love what they've done with that patch...
    it looks very pretty.
    We'll visit the display, too.... it has only just come up on our radar... probably because it is moving and a rose is being planted.

    I see your retreat is visible on the new map...
    and I like the fact he's coloured in the flood plain on the maps.
    I wish people wouldn't keep trying to cultivate them.

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    1. Hi Tim and Pauline,
      I think the exhibition only runs for this weekend. It really was very good. We have higher definition pics that we didn't publish where you can see a lot more. The garden has developed since last year.

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  2. Fascinating..oh but I've missed the vin d'honneur...Will the exhibition stay for the summer?

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    1. Unfortunately, I don't think so. It really was very good.

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  3. This looks fascinating. Did you discover things about the village you didn't already know ? Witht he 11th centurt abbey in Caunes, there is plenty about the town's history all over the place....but it is about the buildings of the 16 th and 17th century mostly.....I am more interested in the development over the last 100 years...and this exhibition looks as if it would have suited me fine ! Discovering that a footpath through our garden was used by les maquis during WW2 as an escape route was pretty exciting ! Jx

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    1. Some things. We also have better photographs so that we can look at the detail at our leisure and with a dictionary!!

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  4. I used to love these exhibitions...usually a labour of love by one or two people but taken up with enthusiasm by the commune.
    It was super to be with people who were pointing out their grandparents' house, or reminiscing about life in the past...I learned a lot about my houses like this...the combination of the expo and the people commenting on it.

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  5. The historian had done a fantastic job presenting, cataloging and mounting the information. This is all besides the meticulous research. We gather that he doesn't live in the village but that his father did.

    We were fascinated by the population. At the peak of 1836 the population was 1105. In 2009 it was 318 and is probably even fewer now.

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  6. I love that hand-colour photo montage of now and 100 years ago - a real labour of love. It's lovely that you have shared it all and that a little bit of the history of Le Petit-Pressigny has passed around the world.
    Axxx

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