Published
Video duration:
6 mins
The 13 Heures Découverte continues its tour of France of traditional houses and their history. For this last episode, Friday September 22, head to the Massif Central, on the Aubrac plateau, with its famous burons, these small houses which once housed the breeders, who made cheese there during the summer pastures in the 18th century.
On the Aubrac plateau, at an altitude of more than 1,300 m, cows are not the only sentinels. The burons are also part of this landscape, with sometimes difficult climatic conditions. These buildings, built of volcanic stone, have housed generations of buronniers, farmers who came to isolate themselves for 4 months with their herd to make cheese. These vestiges of the past are today uninhabited, abandoned or even in ruins.
A heritage to preserve
Éric Morvan, mountain guide, discovered, by chance during a hike, 30 years ago, the oldest buron in Aubrac, half buried. “We can still see the trace of 1803, so these are the first burons built on the massif, in stone, in solid. They followed the burons in clods, branches and grass”, he explains. The buron operated until the beginning of the 20th century, with a dirt floor, no more than 10° C inside, without water or electricity. The only luxury of the three buronniers who lived there was a fireplace. And, so that the burons do not fall into oblivion, the elders want to tell their story.