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Valbonne
Heritage Museum
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The first
task of the Friends of the Abbey of Valbonne, founded in 1993,
was to sort through the items donated by village people and
stored in the Valbonne Cultural Centre for use as the basis
for a local heritage museum. The restoration of the lay brothers’
quarters of the former abbey provided space for the museum.
The challenge now was to bring the 2,000 exhibits back to
life - old furniture, tools, utensils and clothes - by displaying
them as attractively as possible in an authentic setting for
the enjoyment of visitors and to show the donors’ our
interest and respect for their gifts.
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The thematic
displays represent life as it was lived in past times, and
also more recently, in our rural and industrious provencal
village. The large room on the second floor is the showpiece
of the museum, demonstrating different crafts and skills,
Valbonne at work, life at home and pleasure pursuits.
In other
rooms there are representations of a carpenter’s workshop
at the beginning of the twentieth century, a living area of
the same period, and a room used for the storage of desert
grapes.
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The
village at work: cultivation of the land with a
magnificent swing plough; implements for tending olive
trees and making olive oil; implements for tending vines
and winemaking, including a mobile grape press; implements
of various artisans, including a shoemaker’s workshop
and carpenter’s tools as well as sheep rearing,
including evidence of the annual movement of sheep to
better pasturage: sheep shearing and treatment of wool,
and the cultivation and processing of hemp.
Family life: clothes; school; health; religion.
Useful leisure activities: fishing and hunting. |
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In
the former pigeon loft there is the Servan Museum
portraying different aspects of the cultivation and
storage of the famous over-wintered servan grapes. Until
quite recently these desert grapes were a local specialty,
still celebrated at the annual village fair of Saint
Blaise at the end of each January. The tools used to
cultivate the vines and pick the grapes and the different
methods of storing them are all illustrated, and there
is detailed documentation about the areas were the vines
were grown.
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In
a charming room on the first floor a typical Valbonne
living area at the beginning of the twentieth century
has been installed, comprising: a kitchen with an interesting
collection of household implements, a bedroom with a
cot and items used to care for a young child, including
hygiene and clothes, and a fine representative collection
of furniture - not forgetting the lady of the house
herself, in her traditional costume.
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On
the ground floor, in the room that was formally
the monks’ kitchen there is a recreation
of the Roux family carpenter’s shop,
formally located on the Boulevard Carnot, along
with all its tools, both manual and mechanical,
notably a circular saw, a band saw, a grindstone
and a foot operated drill. |
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In
addition to conserving and displaying items that were
formally in daily use, the Friends of the Abbey have
also collected more than 700 photos and documents that
can be examined at the museum. Catalogued by theme:
childhood; family; the village; agriculture; events
and celebrations; war; sport; cinema and school photographs.
We are proud of this collection from family albums –
which is a veritable treasure trove of visual material.
Examples are displayed on the walls of the stairwell
leading to the different rooms in the museum.
Come
and sign our Golden Book, where you will find the
comments and pictures of enthusiastic children, as
well as encouraging words and the congratulations
of tourists from around the world in every language,
including Chinese, Japanese and even hieroglyphics!
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