Villars-lès-Blamont
| Villars-lès-Blamont | ||
|---|---|---|
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| region | Bourgogne-Franche-Comté | |
| Department | Doubs | |
| Arrondissement | Montbeliard | |
| Canton | Maîche | |
| Community association | Pays de Montbéliard agglomeration | |
| Coordinates | 47 ° 22 ′ N , 6 ° 52 ′ E | |
| height | 540-820 m | |
| surface | 6.95 km 2 | |
| Residents | 441 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 63 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 25310 | |
| INSEE code | 25615 | |
| Website | Villars-lès-Blamont | |
 Town hall (mairie) |
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Villars-lès-Blamont is a French municipality with 441 inhabitants (as of January 1 2017) in Doubs in the region Bourgogne Franche-Comté .
geography
Villars-lès-Blamont is located at 598 m, about 17 kilometers south-southeast of the city of Montbéliard (as the crow flies). The village extends in the northern Jura , in a depression between the Lomont range in the south and the Perchet ridge in the north, in the immediate vicinity of the border with Switzerland .
The area of the 6.95 km² large municipality covers a section of the northern French Jura. The central part of the area is occupied by the valley of Villars, which lies at an average of 590 m and opens to the west to the Blamont Table Jura plateau. The depression is mostly made up of arable and meadow land. There are no surface rivers here because the rainwater seeps into the karstified subsoil. In the north, the hollow is flanked by the ridge of the Perchet (up to 700 m), which separates it from the adjacent valley of the Creuse (source stream of the Gland) to the north . The western boundary runs in the valley section of the Noire Combe .
To the south, the community area extends over the wooded slope ( Bois Courbot ) to the crest of the Lomont. From a geological and tectonic point of view, this ridge forms an anticline of the Jura folds , which is oriented in a west-east direction according to the direction of the mountain range in this region. At 820 m, the highest point in Villars-lès-Blamont is reached at the small fortress. Further south, the area extends over the wide height of Le Fay and the wooded Combe Semont basin to the ridge of Les Étabons (up to 780 m), which slopes steeply to the adjacent Doube valley.
Neighboring communities of Villars-lès-Blamont are Montjoie-le-Château and Chamesol in the south, Pierrefontaine-lès-Blamont in the west, Blamont and Dannemarie in the north and the Swiss community of Haute-Ajoie in the east.
history
The first written mention of Villars was in 1145 under the name Vilers . The village then belonged to the Belchamps monastery. In 1282 Villars came under the Blamont rule . After the village came under the sovereignty of the Counts of Montbéliard in 1506, the Reformation was introduced in 1541 . A Lutheran parish was founded in Villars, led by Pastor Jean Courtois, and the one in Glay was assigned to it as a branch. With the Augsburg Interim , Emperor Charles V restored Catholicism in Villars in 1549, and a Catholic vicar was installed at the church. At the end of the interim in 1552, the congregation again accepted a Lutheran pastor, Claude Desmaretz.
When the Guisen invaded the village in 1587/88 it was badly affected. Villars recovered only very slowly, and was now ecclesiastically assigned to the Lutheran parish of Glay as a branch that had gotten off lightly. In order to repopulate Villars, in 1645 Swiss colonists of the Reformed Confession were resettled. As part of the Blamont rule, which formed one of the four dominions of the Principality of Württemberg-Mömpelgard (Montbéliard) and was annexed by France in 1699, Villars finally came under contract to France in 1748. In the treaty in question, France had assured the Duke of Württemberg that the status quo of the Lutheran Church would be preserved. The first Catholics came to the village from 1700.
When the Lutheran pastor in Glay, Charles-Christophe Duvernoy, died in 1746, the French king used his privilege to fill the post and appointed a Catholic curate for Glay and Villars. Church, cemetery and schoolmaster in Villars were now determined by the Catholic side. Despite the treaty, the French government prevented the old settlers and Swiss immigrants who had grown together in the Lutheran community of Villars from appointing a new pastor in 1748. At that time there were 46 flocks (households) of Lutheran and 14 Catholic families in Villars, including some converts among the latter, who benefited from tax rebates. There was discord between the 180 Lutherans and the 91 Catholics in the area (1750). In 1780 the Villars branch was raised to an independent Catholic parish and a new rectory was built at the expense of all community residents. The local Lutherans had to turn to the Lutheran congregation in Pierrefontaine-lès-Blamont for pastoral matters, and they also had to bury their dead there.
In the year of the revolution in 1789, requested to inform the government about existing Gravamina , the Lutherans refused to write such a letter of complaint together with the Catholics. Accordingly, Villars sent two letters. In the meantime there were 41 Catholic households compared to 46 Lutheran households. Under the laws of September 8 and 18, 1790, Villars' Lutherans should have got their church back, which had been confiscated in 1746, but nothing came of it. In 1792 the simultaneum was introduced for the local church . On the Catholic side, Villars remained an independent parish, on the Lutheran side it was again a subsidiary of Glays.
In 1831, 163 Catholics and 304 Lutherans lived in Villars, the latter of which were re-parish in 1846 as a branch to Pierrefontaine. In 1851 the Bisuntin Archbishop Jacques-Marie-Adrien-Césaire Mathieu had a separate Catholic church built in Villars at his own expense and at the expense of the state. Although dilapidated, the Catholics continued to use the old simultaneous church for Vespers and catechisms next to the Lutheran congregation. After the pulpit with Pastor Charles Goguel collapsed in 1874, the Lutherans decided to build a new church (temple). For this purpose, collections and donations were collected in Villars, the Pays de Montbéliard, Switzerland and Saxony , and the French government also made a grant. The old church was demolished in 1876 and the new Lutheran church built on its site, which was consecrated on May 24, 1877. Today the village belongs to the municipality of the Pays de Montbéliard Agglomération .
Attractions
Villars-lès-Blamont has two churches. The Lutheran church was rebuilt in 1877 on the site of a previous church. The Catholic Church of Saint-Mamès, built in 1851, burned down on September 14, 1945; the new building was inaugurated in 1952.
Saint-Mamès church
Interior of the Saint-Mamès church
Lutheran Church
population
| Population development | |
|---|---|
| year | Residents |
| 1962 | 378 |
| 1968 | 345 |
| 1975 | 363 |
| 1982 | 368 |
| 1990 | 366 |
| 1999 | 392 |
| 2006 | 426 |
| 2016 | 448 |
With 441 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) Villars-lès-Blamont is one of the small communities in the Doubs department. After the population had decreased significantly in the first half of the 20th century (544 people were still counted in 1886), population growth has been recorded again since the beginning of the 1990s.
Economy and Infrastructure
Until well into the 20th century, Villars-lès-Blamont was primarily a village characterized by agriculture (arable farming, fruit growing and cattle breeding) and forestry. In addition, there are now some local small businesses. In the meantime the village has turned into a residential community. Many workers are therefore commuters who work in the Montbéliard agglomeration or in nearby Switzerland.
The village is located off the major thoroughfares on a departmental road that leads from Pont-de-Roide-Vermondans to Porrentruy . The closest connection to the A36 motorway is around 20 kilometers away.
