Circuit of the Lac de Faux

4 points of interest

• 

  

  Small patrimony

  The laundries of Faux-la-Montagne

  Appearing in the 19th century through concern for public health and personal hygiene, public laundries were sociable places in villages, reserved for women, who gathered there out of common need and where everyone had their place. The men only came to maintain them, thus avoiding the jibes of the women doing the washing, who had the reputation of having very sharp tongues. Covered laundries were still frequently used until the 1950s.

• 

  

  History

  Faux-la-Montagne

  Faux-la-Montagne owes its name to its high altitude (more than 700 m above sea level) on the western edge of the Millevaches plateau. Although the region was not always wooded, many beech plantations (or fayards) must have existed in the Middle Ages on the outskirts of the village. Indeed "Faux", from the Latin fagus, means beech in Old French; In the 15th century, the village was called Faguo (an Occitan variation of the Latin fagus). Today, around Lake Faux, beech and oak mingle with coniferous trees, occupying what was still heathland grazed by sheep in the 19th century.

• 

  

  Heritage site

  The church of Faux-la-Montagne

  This church, dedicated to Saint-Etienne, the first Christian martyr, was built in the 13th century and was listed as a historic monument in 1963. Its restoration in 2010 revealed its pink granite masonry, eight centuries after its construction.

• 

  

  Site

  The arched dam

  The multi-arch dam is 8 cm thick, 16.5 m high and 130 m wide.