The Vicdessos valley is 30 kilometres deep and has an astonishing industrial heritage: a centre for metal-working since the Xth century, it preferred Catalan-style forges (powered by water and stoked up using wood) to coke-fired blast furnaces. Iron was extracted from the Rancié mine, which was considered in the XVIIIth century to be the "greatest treasure in the Pyrenees". This mine supplied all the forges in the whole of the Ariège up to 1931.
The shrinking of surrounding forests was one of the reasons why Catalan-style forges disappeared: each one consumed an average of some 100 hectares per year!
Mining, a family tradition In the XIIIth century, the count of Foix gave the inhabitants of Vicdessos the right to benefit from the mines and forests in their valley. Each person worked for himself up to a limit set by the community. An outsider could only go down the mine if he married a miner's daughter. By 1826, 455 miners were still mining iron ore at great risk, carrying it on their backs down to mule trains which then took it to the forges.
Places to see
