Audrey : The old parts of Auxerre are full of wonderful Half-Timbered houses. In England these are called Tudor style and they
are usually painted black&white. The French call them pan de bois or colombage and they use all sorts of colour-schemes though a soft apricot or creamy colour with dark brown is the most common. |
| Colombage building with Corbels |
Lillian : Ah - notice the Corbels - nice heavy pieces of wood extending past the walls of the ground floor & supporting the slightly larger rooms upstairs.
Audrey : That's a clever way to get the most out of your real estate!
Lillian : Apparently Corbel structures are quite traditional in the Burgogne (Burgundy) region.
Lillian : The combination of corbelling, sweet colour schemes and the generally higgledy piggledy nature of the buildings, often on narrow, curving lanes - it all creates really delightful streetscapes.
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| Half timbered shops going round a slight corner |
Audrey : And these look like knitting or perhaps fish-bones. Lillian : That was in the central square - and let's look more closely at the statue in front of those shops.
Audrey : Lovely outfit! He is holding a bird aloft and there are cats at his feet - who is this flamboyant chap?
Lillian : He is Cadet Rousselle - you can read more about him here & here in French. Guillaume Rousselle was an actual person who lived in Auxerre, but thanks to a very popular satirical song written in 1792 - Cadet Rousselle has become something of a story-book character.
Audrey : Another view from the central square - that was the cafe where we had ice-creams.
Lillian : Let's see more half-timbered buildings.
Audrey : This one looks like it is being squeezed by the somewhat more modern buildings to either side!
Lillian : Often the ground level was made of stone and only the upper levels are the lighter construction of timber and cob.
Audrey : Another knitting / fish-bone patterned building but it is rather different - it has bricks between the timbers.
Lillian : It also has a classic Mansard Roof.
Audrey : Here is a particularly neat looking colombage
And at the opposite extreme - wonderfully higgledy piggledy.
Lillian : Two styles of architecture - a newly restored half-timbered and corbelled house under the
Audrey : We'll leave this post with another wonderful street-scape from Auxerre. In our next we'll be visiting a fabulous old church, the Église Saint-Eusèbe.
