You should know this lavoir well by now. If not featured in many of my posts, it is often in the background of many of my Chatette and Barn shots. As I've been over on the land and in the barn working, I've found myself talking to many people in the village about the lavoir, it's history-romance-magic and meaning to the village. It always makes me sad to see when something so important to the past life of our village isn't being taken care of. Last week, I was showing Greg's friends around a bit and discovered a door I had never seen before. It is between the road that runs above the lavoir and the Château. Eventually, Dali and I went exploring. I was shocked at what I discovered tucked away behind that tiny door where Dal is standing.
I would describe it as a huge, high, circular, stone basin abutting the lavoir, full of trees, vines, weeds, and junk. The most interesting thing about it is that it appears that there is a whole 'nother piece to the lavoir that we never knew existed. As I tried to visualize what it might have looked like in medieval times, I remembered my across the river neighbors telling me that the archway had been stoned in. Photos were difficult to get without taking some risks. When I had Greg and his friends back down, we joked about getting the Time Team out to do some looking around.
I continued to wander around, imagining what these weed and ivy-coverd structures could have been in the past. I laughed at myself when I thought-"See Laury, all that clearing you did on the land behind and around the barn was just the beginning...practice for this." But from past experience (Eric will know what I'm talking about), I knew better than to jump to any conclusions concerning any property that didn't belong to me. I figured the next steps was going to be to find out if this was communal property or if it belonged to the Château. Was the Time Team in our future? Tomorrow, I will share the rest of the story.