QR Veyre-Monton – Bourg 7
Rue Saint-Verny
This alleyway lined with cellars with clerestory doors gives an idea of what the « Quartier des Forts » was like, occupying the interior of the old castle walls.
It is not known when this area was first subdivided to allow for the construction of « forts » – known elsewhere as « loggia » – tall, narrow buildings that were initially used to provide safe shelter people and their belongings during times of upheaval. According to notarial records, this district was still densely populated and used in the 18th century.
The buildings are different heights depending on whether or not they back onto the enclosure and are covered with half-round tiles. Each level (cellar, vat room, stable, pigsty under the outside staircase, bedroom on one, two or three storeys, loft or attic, dove house) often belonged to different owners. In the vat rooms are vats of varying sizes and wire trays; in the cellars, various casks and puncheons, stored on their « plumas » (stillages). Sometimes the different houses would share a bailey. Along the walls, people had the « right to make manure » in the street in front of their door. A cobbler would have a shop there, and a poor communist priest would live close to his neighbours, modest farmers.