La Roque Saint-Christophe

Peyzac-le-Moustier

La Roque Saint-Christophe is a cliff inhabited over a kilometre, above the Vézère. The shelters were in use from the Upper Palaeolithic and down to the Iron Age. In the 10th century Frotaire, bishop of Périgueux, had a fort raised there to stop the Norsemen from coming up the river; the cliff became the refuge of the district and, in the Middle Ages, a town in its own right, said to have held as many as a thousand inhabitants. The troglodytic forts of the valley communicated with one another by signals, across some twenty watchtowers spread over eighteen kilometres. Taken by the English in 1401 and retaken five years later, the site was finally demolished in 1588 because it was sheltering Huguenots. Beneath the overhang a chapel survives where the rock face has been cut back to house a statue of Saint Christopher.

Getting there : Open every day all year; on the day consulted, 10 am–6.30 pm. Free for under-eights, animals admitted. Telephone 05 53 50 70 45.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound