Ravin de l'Enfer (Hell Ravine)

4 points of interest

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  Architecture

  Le Chambonnet

  Until 1965 the water supply for this hamlet was by béal (irrigation channel), from the brook below the temple. Imagine a channel 650 m long, 25 cm wide and 10 cm deep. Upkeep required an enormous effort to plug fissures, remove chestnut burrs, twigs and leaves. The fountain, a granite trough, was where the béal water arrived. Since then, several springs have been tapped.
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  Pastoralism

  Boutade des Abrits

  This water reservoir is close to where the water was needed. It was built out of stones caulked with soil and is closed by a pierced stone and a wooden clasp.
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  Architecture

  The mill

  The mill, whose construction dates to 1790, was built and used by several landowners at Le Salson. It was the largest mill in the valley and had been cleverly designed. Its well-thought-out water course could activate several millstones at once. The mill was thus used to make groats while another millstone ground rye or wheat or buckwheat for flour and yet another crushed walnut kernels for oil. 
  In another building, pieces of caddis cloth were fulled. The water of the Gardon d'Alès was partially dammed and collected in a gourgue (basin) to activate the mill’s horizontal wheels. When the water re-emerged, it was channelled into béals (irrigation channels). A 2 km-long béal irrigated meadows and chestnut trees all the way to below Le Grenier.
• 

  History

  The temple of St- Frézal de Ventalon

  The temple (Protestant church) replaced a Catholic church that had been burnt down by the Camisards. The municipality bought the adjacent ruins in the early 1980s to turn them into a group gîte, an apartment and a community centre. In the hamlet of Le Géripon, you can see a small family cemetery. Cévenol Protestants, not having access to Catholic cemeteries, buried their dead on their land.