Heritage: Champorcher

An original architecture, linked to the impervious land

In a rocky and sloping valley like Champorcher, crossing the river banks was not an easy task. Placing the bridge foundations on top of rocky gulfs, over turbulent waters, the master builders of the XVII and XVIII centuries created masterpieces, that still today stand and resist the impressive floods.

Only 6 km from the central vallley, at the chieftown of Pontboset, a path joins different winding mule-back bridges on the Rathus river; these bridges lead to the sunny hillside where there are numerous abandoned villages.

These houses, attached to the slopes, are characterized by their “soulei”, high haylofts closed by vertical walls bound by pillars on the corners. Small two-storey stone homes, built beside each other, were used as drying rooms for chestnuts and remind us that, in 1000 meters in altitude, these populations existed thanks to this nutritious fruit.

Higher up the culture of grains takes on heroic aspects. The rye fields of long ago, overhanging one on top of the other, thanks to the layout of the hillside, characterize this landscape and were entirely built by man.
In the villages, like Outre l’Eve, numerous grain barns show the expert skills of the carpenters of this mountain valley, which is worth discovering.
The ethnographic hemp museum at Chardonney was built under an old XVIII century barn, furnishing an inhabited stable, much like the one of Champorcher in the winter. The inhabitants were specialized in the weaving of hemp and this precious material was carried from all over Valle d’Aosta. It was a primary material in the daily lives of the people and they used it to make underwear, drapes and sheets.

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The building
The visitors centre of the Mont Avic Nature Park was created by restoring ‘Villa Biamonti’, a building constructed in the first years of the 20th century as a tourist residence. The restoration preserved the most characterizing elements of the building, reinterpreting in contemporary terms some of its peculiar features such as the use of wood in the internal spaces. The building was designed with anti-seismic criteria outlining the use of low environmental impact materials as well as the maximum respect of the parameters relating to energy efficiency and rational use of renewable sources.

The visit
The information office and a reception room are located on the ground floor.
The exhibition area, complementary to the Park’s Visitors Centre in Covarey of Champdepraz, was designed with the aim of the active involvement of the guests and describes the geological, morphological and biological aspects of the high altitude environments of the Park.
The first floor is dedicated to the most interesting geological and morphological characteristics of the Dondena valley, with a rich series of photographic images, finds, dynamic and plastic models on which themed maps are projected.
Flora, vegetation, fauna and pastoral activities are illustrated on the second floor. Particularly interesting are the installations about small and large predators, realized using models and finds in a unusual and very original way.

Inside the Centre the map of Mont Avic Park scaled at 1:25,000 can be purchased for 5,00 €; it includes useful information for hikers - in Italian, French and English – and two simplified cartographic inserts.

Another reliable guide to the routes, refuges and refreshment points of the Park is the Mont Avic Park APP, which can be downloaded for free both for iPhone and Android. It can also be used in offline mode, it therefore also works where there is no signal.

As the Bard Fortress, Champorcher Castle also belonged to the powerful Lords of Bard, until the fratricidal war between William and Hugo in 1212. Little is known of this early building: we know that it was burned down by order of Hugo of Bard, which might suggest that it was constructed mostly of wood, like many buildings in the late Middle Ages. It was probably reconstructed in the same century, and definitely before 1276, when already it needed to be roofed with wooden tiles.
Following the popular tradition, the castle was built on the Corseria (currently the sacristy), with a chapel that would later become the first parish church.
Of the ancient building, it remains the square-plan tower (about six metres per side) with swallowtail merlons south-west of the church. It was used during the Middle Ages as a watchtower. Access is via a door which is can only be reached using a ladder placed four metres above the ground.

Each village has its own chapel, typically built over the last centuries thanks to money left in wills by inhabitants. Many still retain their original appearance: Verana, Outre-Léve, Salleret, Grand-Rosier, which dates back to the XVIII century, Petit Rosier and Gontier, built in the XIX century; others were renovated at the end of the nineteenth or twentieth centuries (Mellier, Vigneroisa, Coudreyt, Chardonney and Grand-Mont Blanc). Other chapels were built in particular places, including:
- SANT’ANNA CHAPEL, located in the shady flatland of Plan Fenêtre, upstream of the town of Rosier, founded in 1777 and renovated in 1985. On the 26th July, St. Anne’s feast day, it continues to be a place of pilgrimage.
- DEGRÈS OR ECHELLY CHAPEL, located beside an ancient mule track, in a gorge of the same name, dating back to the XVIII century and abandoned; one can still see two small windows with a view directly over the altar on the choir walls, leading to believe the opening was used to say a quick prayer by hurried passers-by. Its position is particularly picturesque: upstream, the site is overhung by an inaccessible, rocky wall, while the beautiful “royal road” still passes downstream, with impressive stone walls and cut stone base, built by King Victor Emanuel II in 1862 to reach the Dondena plain, where he would stay when hunting.
- SAN MARCO CHAPEL, with its feast day on the 25th of April, it is located in the picturesque village of Grand-Mont-Blanc. Inside, a canvas above the altar depicts a showing of the Shroud: the precious cloth is being unfolded and held up by three bishops, according to one of the most classic outlines of Shroud iconography. It concerns a memory of the passing of a special procession which brought the shroud from Chambéry to Turin, something which made an obvious mark on chapels, frescoes and monuments.

Built in 1658, however the current building is the result of reconstruction work in 1881, based on an initiative by the parish priest Jean-Baptiste Danna and the abbot Pierre Chanoux, and the subsequent resurfacing work, the last of which took place in 2000. As far back as one can remember, each year the 5th of August celebrates the Feast of the Virgin Mary of the Snow. Participants include numerous pilgrims, also from Cogne, Valsoana and Fénis, a district which in the past held close ties with Champorcher through the high mountain hills that communicate these valleys.

The parish church is the result of the reconstruction of the previous church (which dates back to 1532 and which was probably built on an older church), which was carried out in 1728 by the Valsesian architect Jean Fer (or Ferro) as well as the subsequent additions and transformations: the building of the main altar in 1741 (which is also the work of an artist from Valsesia, Giovanni Battista Gilardi) and the side altars (three of which were built by a craftsman from Val d’Ayas, Claude-Maurice Freydox) between 1864 and 1868, at the same time as the creation of the two naves.

The original church, which presumably dates back to the 14th century, appears to coincide, at least in the part of the choir, with the chapel of the Bard castle. The baroque style altars made of engraved, painted and partially gilded wood, are complete with statues of saints, among which, at the centre of the main altar, there is that of Saint Nicholas, the patron of the parish. Around the alcoves in which the statues of the saints are housed, there are numerous tortile columns and statues of little angels.

At the bottom of the church, in the left hand nave, a parochial museum has been set up with the statues taken from the district chapels to save them from the numerous thefts that had occurred during the previous decades and that had significantly reduced the parish’s artistic and sacred patrimony.

Hemp weaving was an important activity in Champorcher. Production was carried out by almost all families until the end of the 1950s.
Raw materials came from the villages of Arnad and Donnas or were purchased in the Canavese district.
The loom was very simple and has undergone few modifications over time. It was built in larch wood with rope heddles and weavers still toss the shuttle manually across the loom. An example of an old loom is preserved inside the ecomuseum of the Chardonney village.
In a traditional home the loom was placed in the corner of the stable next to the window, in order to exploit the little space available. Generally weaving was done during winter watches, then the new cloth was washed in the spring. Washing was almost a ritual and ended with the fabric being displayed along the road, where it was admired and assessed by the community.
The exhibition site offers the possibility to purchase hemp items realized by the women of “Lou Dzeut” cooperative.

The museum is situated inside an ancient building in the centre of the village of Chardonney, where is also located the “Lo Dzeut” cooperative.

In the museum it is possible to admire an ancient stable, a historical building and only example currently present in Champorcher. It is possible to see an old manual wooden loom and a warping frame.
Conservation work on the rooms, including a cellar (crotta), a rustic kitchen (meison) and a stable (boi), were varied in nature, however always in compliance with the structure, the fixtures and furniture, and their background and use.
The loom was restored to pristine condition to be used for demonstrations.