Cabanes Du Breuil - Architecture

Architecture

From an architectural and morphological point of view, each hut consists of three different parts:

• a base of stones laid with earth mortar (not to be confused with dry stone walling);
• a vault of corbelled and outward-inclining stones;
• over the vaulting, a bell-shaped roof of stone tiles with outward-flaring eaves.

Because of the slope, the uphill roof eaves are nearly at ground level.

Entrances look downhill and extend all the way up to the roof eaves. Their uprights are made of dressed stones alternating as headers and stretchers. They are capped by outer and inner wooden lintels, right under the eaves. They are fitted with a wooden door.

Each roof is adorned with a large dormer window (or hay window) with mortared stone jambs and a projecting roof supported by outer and inner wooden lintels. There is a break in the eaves right under each dormer. A number of windows can be accessed (presumably by poultry) through a flight of three or four projecting stones laid into the wall beneath.

Each roof is capped by a large, circularly carved stone slab.

Inside the huts, at the height where corbelling starts, wooden beams serve as a rudimentary upper floor.

In their forms and techniques, the stone huts show an outstanding architectural unity, a likely hint that they belong to one and the same period or are the work of one and the same craftsman. Architecturally speaking, they are similar to the stone huts with conical or bell-shaped roofs that can be seen in other parts of the Sarlat region and hark back to a building campaign extending from the mid 18th century to the late 19th century.