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About the
Allier Contact: Adrian and Shamsiah Collett Tel: 0207 254 4570 (24 hours) Contact us: adrian1collett@aol.com The Allier is the most northerly Department of the Auvergne. It is a land of soft rolling countryside famous for its grassland and Charollais cattle. The farming community here is real. That is, there are no gentleman farmers, no large corporations and no enormous tracts of arable land that have been denuded of hedgerow and woodland. Here are small fields punctuated by forests, lakes, rivers and bridle paths. You can walk, ride or cycle for miles without doing more than crossing the occasional metalled road. The area is teeming with wild life and walking at dusk you are quite likely to startle a group of wild deer or wild boar grazing in a meadow or looking for acorns in the forest. At the same time the horizons are enormous and there is a great sense of space and light. You will also come across sudden contrasts like the gorge of the river Aumance with the village of Herisson (literally, Hedgehog) and the remains of its ancient chateau perched on the edge. In the extreme south-east of the department are the Bourbonnais mountains which provide the nearest ski slopes. The Allier was the province of the Bourbon Kings and there are numerous reminders of this in the Chateau of the spa town of Bourbon l'Archambault, the ancient Monastry at Souvigny, and elsewhere. There are the well known wines of Saint Pourçain and a small vineyard at Riousse that has recently been revived by a local co-operative after going out of production in the early 1950's. It is producing some excellent red, white and rose wines at affordable prices. The area is rich in sporting and cultural events and there is so much happening in all the seasons of the year that it is difficult to keep up. Apart from those mentioned above there is tennis, golf, white water canoeing, football - even small villages have at least one team, rugby, riding, sailing, wind surfing and so on. There are music festivals, concerts, opera, theatre (including the famous travelling Footsbarn Theatre based on a farm near Herisson. There are art exhibitions, pottery, woodcarving, glass blowing, leatherwork, basketwork - and too many more to mention. This is a relatively dry region. The winters can be very cold for a few weeks but the springs and autumns are warm and dry and the summers hot. Most of the houses we have for sale are fermettes, either in their original state or converted. These are typically farmhouses of 3 rooms downstairs with a loft above and either a barn with a few cowstalls and perhaps a piggery attached to the house; or a separate barn. Two of the rooms in the house used to serve as bedrooms and the third was the living room, kitchen and bathroom combined. The toilet was ‘out there’ somewhere! The loft was used to store hay and corn for the animals. These make magnificent bedrooms having, almost without exception, oak beams that can be left exposed. Most properties have large gardens and some are sold with an acre or more of land. House to let while you are viewing If you would like to be independent while you look for your ideal French home we have a house to rent at very reasonable rates either short or longer term.
If you are interested, please email us for details. Contact: Adrian and Shamsiah Collett Tel: 0207 254 4570 (24 hours) Contact us: adrian1collett@aol.com
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