Vernaux

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Vernaux
Vernaus
Vernaux (France)
Vernaux
region Occitania
Department Ariège
Arrondissement Foix
Canton Haute-Ariège
Community association Haute Ariège
Coordinates 42 ° 46 ′  N , 1 ° 46 ′  E Coordinates: 42 ° 46 ′  N , 1 ° 46 ′  E
height 639–2,081 m
surface 6.06 km 2
Residents 28 (January 1, 2017)
Population density 5 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code 09250
INSEE code 09330

Sainte-Marthe Church

Vernaux ( Occitan Vernaus ) is a mountain village and a small municipality in the south of France with 28 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) in the Ariège department in the Occitania region .

location

The place Vernaux is at an altitude of about 785 m above sea level. d. M. and thus about 250 m above the valley of the Ariège in the northern foothills of the Pyrenees . The health resort of Ax-les-Thermes is only about 12 km (driving distance) in a south-easterly direction; the towns of Foix and Pamiers are about 36 and 56 km northwest, respectively. The temperatures are moderate; the precipitation (approx. 850 mm / year) is distributed over the whole year.

Population development

year 1800 1851 1901 1954 1999 2014
Residents 108 133 116 63 28 31

Since the end of the 19th century, the phylloxera crisis and the mechanization of agriculture have led to a loss of jobs and, as a result, to a continuous decline in the number of inhabitants to the lowest values ​​of the last decades.

economy

The inhabitants of Vernaux live mainly from agriculture, with cattle farming and thus milk and cheese production in the foreground, but viticulture is also being practiced again to a small extent. Some residents work in talc mining or in the talc factory in Luzenac ; In addition, tourism - also in the form of renting out holiday homes ( gîtes ) - plays an important role in the economic life of the small community.

history

The first mention of the place and its church comes from a deed of donation from the Counts of Foix to the Abbey of Cluny from the year 1074; a little later the church gave this to the abbey of Sainte-Marie de Lagrasse .

Attractions

  • The parish church of Sainte-Marthe , which stands next to the local cemetery, is a single-nave, three-apse building from the end of the 11th or beginning of the 12th century, made of not very precisely worked tuff stones . The windows of the undivided apses face east, although their arrangement is similar to that of a three-conch church . The unadorned west facade with its walled-up portal is surmounted by a two-part bell gable; today's simple portal is located behind a semicircular porch on the north side. The barrel-vaulted nave was painted in the 19th century; In the apses there are listed remains of frescoes from the 14th or 15th century. The church itself has been recognized as a monument historique since 1910 .
  • In the immediate vicinity of the cemetery there is a megalith , the top of which is crowned by a wrought-iron cross.

Web links

Commons : Vernaux  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Vernaux - Map with altitude information
  2. ↑ Vernaux - climate tables
  3. ↑ Église Sainte-Marthe, Vernaux in the Base Palissy of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  4. ↑ Église Sainte-Marthe, Vernaux in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)