Hauts LieuxChapels, sanctuaries & legends

Hauts Lieux›All places›Ariège

Bastide (planned town)Ariège

La Bastide-sur-l'Hers

La Bastide-sur-l'Hers

Dimensions
The church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, whose keystone gives the date 1527, looks down on the village; an organ was installed there in 2008. The Protestant temple dates from 1826 and the covered market from the end of the 19th century. Along the Hers-Vif, channels and former workshops recall the medieval mills and the comb industry.
Period
Bastide dated to 1252; church of 1527; jet in the 18th century, horn combs from 1828.
What stands there
A bastide of the pays d'Olmes that became in the 19th century a capital of the horn comb, with ten million pieces a year after 1850. The physiologist Philippe Tissié was born there in 1852. Its inhabitants are called Bastidiens.

North-east of Lavelanet, on the Hers-Vif, La Bastide-sur-l'Hers owes its name to a medieval foundation that Wikipedia's list of bastides dates to 1252, without the texts naming the founder: the village lies in the lordship of Mirepoix, the Terre du maréchal des Lévis, but no page read establishes the link. From the Middle Ages the inhabitants diverted the waters of the Hers for their flour, oil and tanning mills and for textiles; a flour mill is recorded in 1512. In the 18th century the working of jet, that polished lignite exported as far as America and the Indies, made the village's fortune, before the manufacture of horn combs, between 1828 and 1854, made it one of the great centres of that industry, with ten million combs a year after 1850. The church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption bears the date 1527 on its keystone.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the village. The heritage site of the Pyrénées cathares devotes a page to the local industry.

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

See it on the map OpenStreetMap Directions

Ambient sound

La Bastide-sur-l'Hers
M l'instant · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

In the same department

All places — Ariège (25).