HAUTERIVES

The hamlet of Hauterives is located a little downstream from Saint-Chély-du-Tarn, isolated on the left bank of the Tarn. Its particularity is that there is no bridge to access it. In order to get supplies, the inhabitants used either a boat or a small basket on a cable to transport materials or foodstuffs from one bank to the other. The houses in the hamlet have retained their original features. They are built only in stone, without any wooden framework, according to the principle of semicircular vaults and covered with limestone slate for the roof. Above the village, on a bare piton, is perched the Hauterives castle whose ruins bear witness to the ravages of the war of religions. The village was originally located in a place that did not encroach on arable land, and out of reach of the river floods.