Visits and sales of hayforks
Rue des Boisseliers 30610 Sauve France
Tel : 04 66 80 54 46-Fax : 04 66 51 63 79
English
The museum is a place of living memory where craftsmen still produce hayforks in micocoulier wood. They are sold to individuals and professionals who use them in daily agriculture and breeding. It is also the essential accessory for a rustic decoration or a reconstruction of old times. You will discover the qualities of the hayfork clicking on the link : “fabrication”.
During your visit, you will discover the museum, the whole story of Sauve’s fork starting from the micocoulier plant and ending up with its cooking. You will also see the interpretation room and its interactive computers presenting the territory of Sauve (environment, animals, vegetation and history…).
"La Trinité mes frères, est comparable aussi à une fourche, à une jolie fourche, de ces fourches que l'on fabrique à Sauve" F Mistral
Jean Antoine de Claris, Lord of Florian,
helped the administrator of the co-operative
to convince the king to leave the monopoly of
the hayfork’s manufacturing down to the people of Sauve.
An ancestral tradition and a unique technique
Since the 12 th century, hayforks, made of micocoulier wood, have been made in Sauve. From the 15th century, a strict legislation keeps the secret of its production and the monopoly of its culture in Sauve. In 1688, producers reunited to plan the future of the production in agricultural cooperatives. These famous forks were sold to royal and imperial stables and later to republican ones. They were also exported to Algeria for agriculture works. With its chalky and rocky grounds, auspicious to the growing of micocoulier tree, the village of Sauve has known to reveal the particularism of this vegetal species. People from Sauve have created and perfected an ingenious technique of the “hayfork’s culture”.
The non-profit making organization
« Le Fanabrègue » exists since 1993 and has spent ten years of voluntary work on the creation of Sauve’s museum. Since 2003, the museum is settled in the historic premises of the making of hayforks : the former “Cazernes”, built in 1759. The architecture has not changed and is very well preserved, it shows the remains of several centuries of hayforks’ production since 1815.
The former “Cazernes”