Sainte-Fortunade. Works: A car park and a leisure area will soon be finalized in the “L’Etanchoux” sector. As the saying goes “Paris wasn’t built in a day”. It took more than half a century and several terms of office to make Etanchoux, this originally wooded and marshy area with a washhouse, a sports complex and a parking area in the immediate vicinity of the castle park. .
Marie Jeanne, a native of the village, talks about this sector where her grandmother “La Jeanne” who lived in Barry-Bas washed the laundry in the Etanchoux washhouse.
“This thankless job, where she froze her hands and broke her back, was her livelihood”
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“She acted as a washing machine for several families and frequently went to the laundry. I often accompanied him to this place where the news was exchanged and where the children had fun while waiting for the end of the wash. She pushed her wooden wheelbarrow loaded with dirty laundry down the lane of Barry-Bas, knelt down, washed, rinsed and returned, the wheelbarrow loaded with wet laundry which weighed very heavy. And to add: “One of her neighbours, “la Maria”, performed the same function for other families. This thankless job, where she froze her hands and broke her back, was her livelihood. “.
We went through the Barry Bas. It was the only way to go to the laundry, the castle and the park being enclosed by a surrounding wall and a barn bordering the current car park in front of the Orangery.
The perimeter wall demolished for the road
Jean du “Bail” remembers precisely its demolition to build the road that crosses the park today: “It was in May 1959 the day I left the house to leave for military service. When I returned on leave for the first time in 1960, it was done”. There was also in this sector already a small piece of land that some remember.
Christian and a few others mention it: “There were rusty basketball posts, some basic equipment and a door in the wall that gave access to this place where young people would meet, in fact our playground at the time. »
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