Forêt de la Braconne
The Forêt de la Braconne is a domain forest in the Charente department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region . The forest is located about 15 kilometers northeast of the prefectural city of Angoulême .
etymology
The French Braconne is derived from braconnier with the meaning "poacher, poacher". Originally, however, the word braconnier came from the hunter's language and referred to personnel whose task it was to raise and train hunting dogs for driven hunts - so-called braques , German for "bracke or Stöberhund".
history
The Forêt de la Braconne has been a domain forest for a very long time and originally belonged to the Counts of Angoulême . On December 18, 1226 Heinrich III had it . (together with Saintes and Saintonge , the island of Oléron and the castles of Merpins and Cognac ) given as a gift to Hugo X of Lusignan - Count of La Marche and Count of Angoulême. Franz I came here to hunt - one of the main uses of the forest area at that time. Was also sought the wood as fuel for the foundry Ruelle , as a building material for shipyards, as raw material for cooper (Preparation of oak casks for wine and brandy), and carpenters, but also for the production of charcoal .
After the Angoumois was regained by the English in the course of the Hundred Years War towards the end of the 14th century, it became royal property. Charles VI but then left it to his younger brother Louis de Valois, duc d'Orléans . In 1765 it came to Charles X , the Count of Artois, as apanage . However, by royal compensation it returned to the crown on September 5, 1776.
The area of the forest was then 5,249 hectares or 10,279 acres (French: arpents ). Due to the turmoil of the French Revolution and subsequent disturbances, the area fell to 3,996 hectares. Until 1838 the forest was managed as coppice and high forest. Felling was done in 58 to 150 hectares of felling, the wood of which was intended for the Ruelle foundry.
During the Second World War , the line of demarcation between occupied and unoccupied France ran through the Forêt de la Braconne and divided the Charente department into two parts. The occupied zone was in the west of the forest, the unoccupied zone (also known as zone nono in French ) in the east. A memorial in the forest commemorates the sixteen resistance fighters executed by the German occupation forces between 1943 and 1944.
The historical language border of France runs through the forest - with speakers of the Saintongeais in the west and Occitan speakers in the east.
Military use
French troop camp
In 1878 the artillery regiments of the 12th Army Corps set up a troop camp in the Forêt de la Braconne east of Les Frauds . They exposed a polygon for artillery purposes and also created an 8-kilometer-long field of fire on the west side of the forest in a north-north-west-south-south-east direction. For these purposes, a total of 383 hectares of forest area were withdrawn from the forest administration. The field of fire and the troop camp are used today by the 515e RT transport regiment .
American troop camp
In 1952, at the request of NATO, a huge 800 hectare camp for American troop contingents was set up at the southern end of the forest . The fully autonomous military camp housed 4,000 American military personnel and French civilians. The ring road alone was 12 kilometers long and there were another 30 kilometers of roads inside. 1,000 tanks were stationed here. In addition to the main access road, the camp was connected to the Angoulême- Limoges railway line . It housed a cinema and the first supermarket in the department.
In the 1960s, the Cité Chabasse settlement was built outside the military camp in the direction of Mornac for officers and technicians . It consisted of 44 bungalows with their own heating and bathroom and was at that time the epitome of modernity.
The Americans left the camp on March 13, 1967. It was then turned into an industrial area, the so-called ZE de la Braconne .
geography
The 3,904 hectare (39.04 square kilometers) Forêt de la Braconne crosses between Angoulême and La Rochefoucauld . It forms part of the communes of Brie , Jauldes , Coulgens , La Rochette , Agris , Rivières , Saint-Projet-Saint-Constant , Bunzac and Pranzac, which belong to the canton of La Rochefoucauld . It also affects the municipality of Mornac in the canton of Ruelle-sur-Touvre .
The domain forest covers a north-south stretched plateau that is 14 kilometers long and 4 kilometers wide. The eastern limit of this plateau is the Bandiat valley . The plateau is 120 meters high on average and slopes slightly to the east. The highest point is the 156-meter-high Gros Fayant , on which a military observation tower was once located. The minimum height is 75 meters.
The forest area is crossed diagonally by the N 141 (so-called Route Center-Europe-Atlantique ) and the D 12 from Angoulême to Chasseneuil-sur-Bonnieure . Other departmental roads run through the forest, such as the D 110, D 88, D 11 and D 105.
The Forêt de la Braconne forms part of a huge original forest area that extends 75 kilometers further northwest to south of Niort . The once contiguous area has now broken up into several partial forests. To the northwest, the Forêt de Boixe , the Forêt de Tusson , the Massif forestier d'Argenson , the Forêt de Chef-Boutonne , the Forêt d'Aulnay and the Forêt de Chizé follow . the Forêt de Bois Blanc , the Forêt de Dirac , the Forêt d'Horte , the Forêt de la Rochebeaucourt and finally the forests of the Périgord continue to the south .
geology
The plateau of the Forêt de la Braconne is underlain by flat Jura limestone , which belongs to the northeastern edge of the Aquitaine Basin . The sediments lie directly on the crystalline basement of the Massif Central . The limestones are karstified and form part of the karst of La Rochefoucauld . Typical karst landforms are dry valleys , as fosses called sinkholes and shaft caves . The underground hydrogeological network mainly converges in the Sources de la Touvre - after the Fontaine de Vaucluse, the second largest source of upwelling in France. The underground network is mainly fed by the Bandiat and Tardoire river retreats .
In the Forêt de la Braconne a total of 15 sinkholes (fosses) are counted, including:
- Grande fosse - 55 meters deep, 250 meters in diameter
- Fosse limousine - 25 meters deep, 100 meters in diameter
- Fosse mobile - 50 meters deep shaft cave
- Fosse de l'Ermitage - located on the southern edge, 50 meters deep and 200 meters in diameter
- Fosse Redon - lateral position, 30 meters deep and 100 meters in diameter
- Fosse Rode
- Trou de Champniers
- Trou des Duffaits
- Trou qui fume
Also worth mentioning are the Grande Combe - a dry valley running from south to north, which runs along the east of the army's field of fire and flows into the Tardoire at the hamlet of Vieilles Vaures (municipality of La Rochette) - and the spectacular river swell at Chez Roby in the Bandiattal.
A good 300 meters of Upper Jurassic limestone of the Oxfordium and Kimmeridgium are open in the Forêt de la Braconne . The sedimentation begins with a 30 to 50 meter thick Middle Oxfordium , which immediately follows the condensation horizon ( English hardground ) of the Callovium . In contrast to the surrounding sedimentation area with markedly marl-like sedimentation, a higher-lying, relatively low depth fluctuations exposed threshold had formed in the area of the Forêt de la Braconne from the Upper Oxfordium , on which purely carbonatic, bioclastic, subrecifal to recifal sediments were deposited. As the threshold approaches, the marly sediments become richer in carbonate and more thickly banked. In Biagne , for example, granular limestones with a low clay content and intense bioturbation appear. Further to the southeast, the limestone is gravelly, biodetritic and sometimes also oolithic. The thickness of the Upper Oxfordium varies between 50 and 80 meters.
In the Lower Kimmeridgian the sediments are becoming increasingly gravelly and rich in bioclasts. Their reef-like character increases towards the southeast, but without ever building a true bioherm. There are gravelly, coarse-banked limestone, oolite and oncolith limestone, which is estimated to be 60 to 70 meters thick. The 80-meter-thick marl and clay-rich lamellibranchian limestone above this in the normal profile and the 60-meter-thick white lamellibranchian limestone, which are very dense to sublithographic, are also recorded in the south of the Forêt de la Braconne by its high-energy conditions and are accordingly faced.
The sediment package of the Upper Jurassic consists largely of very hard and recrystallized limestone with internal fractures. It is tectonically stressed and is crossed by several faults , especially in the northern section. The faults strike northwest or north-northwest. These are faults to the southeast towards the interior of the basin. The fault east of La Rochette has raised Middle Oxfordium. A northwest-trending small ditch structure forms the southern boundary of the forest to the Bois Blanc. All of these faults are possibly cutouts in the crystalline basement, which was tectonically reactivated during the Pyrenees orogenesis. The general angle of incidence of the Upper Jurassic sediments is 5 ° to the southwest. In the area of the disturbances, however, the dip can steepen up to 25 ° due to dragging and even assume opposite values of 20 ° to the northeast due to tilting. In places, a slight dip to the northwest can also be observed.
Sandy Tertiary sediments mixed with clays lay over the Upper Jurassic at culminating points . These are interpreted as very high terrace sediments that were deposited at the very beginning of the valley formations of the Bandiat and Tardoire in the Pliocene . Sands and gravel with quartz pebbles reaching a diameter of 5 centimeters were brought in. On the Gros Fayant , the contact between Mesozoic and Tertiary is marked by decalcification and local silicification of the underlying Upper Jurassic. This relatively small residual formation lies at 120 meters above sea level. More recent terraces of the Quaternary are also present along the two rivers, such as old Quaternary terraces along the left side of the valley of the Bandiat, which come to lie at 30 meters above the current level of the river, and a low terrace possibly originating from the Eemium on the left side of the Tardoire. Also worth mentioning are ice age solifluction masses south of Coulgens, which emerged from the gel fraction of the Jura limestone.
archeology
In several caves in the Forêt de la Braconne, traces dating back to the Bronze Age have been discovered. Examples can be found in the Trou qui Fume network at La Rochette or in the Trou des Duffaits . The latter cave is the type locality of the eponymous Duffaits culture from the middle and early late bronze (1500 to 1200 BC), which was strongly influenced by the tumulus culture of Central Europe . The beginnings of the Iron Age are also documented in these caves.
ecology
flora
The Forêt de la Braconne is a karst forest of oak ( English oak Quercus robur , sessile oak Quercus petraea , downy oak Quercus pubescens and holm oak Quercus ilex ), pines ( black pine Pinus nigra and Scots pine Pinus sylvestris ), Cedar ( Atlas cedar Cedrus atlantica) , Hornbeams and also beeches - very unusual in this area - exist. There are also field maple and French maple . Of particular interest are the Bois Long oak forest southwest of Bunzac and the Gros Fayant beech trees .
The forest habitats account for 83 percent of deciduous forest , 12 percent of coniferous forest , 2 percent of heather , shrubbery, scrub and wasteland, 1 percent of dry meadows and steppes and 2 percent of anthropogenically modified areas.
Overall, the forest is of great phytocenotic interest, as it has facies that are quite original for the region. For example, a mesophilic beech forest , mountain elm stands and summer linden trees in the Grande Fosse . In the downy oak coppice there are forex to thermophilic limestone meadows. Despite their limited distribution, they have a considerable floristic value because it endemic taxa such as chickweed Arenaria controversa and thickets with the Spirea Spriraea hispanica and the heather Erica scoparia included and others.
fauna
From a faunistic point of view, the forest is remarkable for its bat colonies . The animals overwinter in the numerous caves and reproduce here. Six bat species are native to the forest. These include pug bat Barbastella barbastellus , large mouse- eared mouse Myotis myotis and lesser horseshoe bat Rhinolophus hipposiderus - all three with significance level B. The long-winged bat Miniopterus schersii - of significance level C - is native to the forest, and it also winters and reproduces here. Also present are the ciliated bat Myotis emarginatus and Bechstein's bat Myotis bechsteinii .
Noteworthy among the insects are the great ibex Cerambyx cerdo and the stag beetle Lucanus cervus , both of which are of importance level C.
Protective measures
The Forêt de la Braconne is protected by Natura 2000 . The protected 4,588 hectares also include the Bois Blanc .
The forest has three habitats, which are assigned the significance level C:
- Heath and meadows on a calcareous site. They are characterized by the common juniper Juniperus communis and occupy a total of 9 percent of the total area.
- Beech stands on 4 percent of the total area.
- semi-natural dry meadows on 1 percent of the total area. They have remarkable orchid sites .
Long-distance hiking trails
Since the Forêt de la Braconne is located in the immediate vicinity of the catchment area of Greater Angoulême, it is crossed by numerous hiking and long-distance hiking trails . Of particular importance are the GR 36 from the English Channel to the Pyrénées-Orientales and the GR de Pays Entre Angoumois et Périgord , which connects the Angoumois with the Périgord .
Forest houses
In the Forêt de la Braconne there are the following forest houses:
- Les Mesniers
- Le Gros Fayant
- Les Rassats (now sold)
- Le Lac Français
- La Croix Rouge (sold)
- Le Rond-Point Limousin
See also
- Bandit
- Forêt de Bois Blanc (Charente)
- Forêt de Quatre Vaux
- Karst of La Rochefoucauld
- Sources de la Touvre
- Tardoire
literature
- B. Bourgueil, P. Moreau and J. Vouvé: Angoulême XVII-32 . In: Carte géologique de la France at 1/50 000 . BRGM.
- P. Hantzpergue et al .: Mansle . In: Carte géologique de la France at 1/50 000 . BRGM, 1984.
Individual evidence
- ↑ LF. Alfred Maury: Les forêts de la Gaule et de l'ancienne France . Ladrange, Paris 1867, p. 501 .
- ^ Charles de Tourtoulon and Olivier Bringuier: Limite geographique de la langue d'oc et de la langue d'oil . Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1876, p. 63 .
- ^ André Debord: La société laïque dans les pays de la Charente Xe-XIIe s. Picard, 1984, ISBN 2-7084-0112-2 , pp. 585 .
Web links
Coordinates: 45 ° 44 ′ 0 ″ N , 0 ° 19 ′ 0 ″ E