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The Palejay were the
local gentry - Les Seigneurs. As well as owning land in the village the
Palejay owned land in other areas: documents we have refer to the Barthelasse, the island on the Rhone beside Avignon. In the seventeenth century they donated the
altar of Notre Dame de Grace Monastery in Rochefort. Later in the
eighteenth century they had their own church built, which is now used as
Rochefort town-hall.
The Gite is part of a
building which was the Palejays' main residence.
There is a date on the building that refers to the seventeenth century but
with the renovation process we discovered it is much older. In fact there
have been several modifications over the centuries. The architect who was
responsible for the renovation thought it must have been a fortified
building (bastion) at one time because of the thickness of the walls and
the presence of an internal well. The area dedicated to the Gite has had
several functions: when the rendering was removed from the outside wall a
cross was found above one of the windows, it may have had a religious
function (private chapel) before the Palejays had
their church built.The vaulted ceilings were
stained by smoke, it could have been a curing room, another room in the
building was certainly used to store dried meat.
In more recent times, during the second
world war the Germans used the house as their headquarters; the Resistance
was active in the local forest. In one small room there were three messages
in German, to loved ones. By the size of the room and the content of the
messages they may have been prisoners, marks on a wall in an adjacent room
gives the impression that they did not walk away.
More recently the Gite
area was used to store olives and house vineyard workers.
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