La hêtraie du clos-masure, entre modernisations agricoles et urbanisation

Abstract

The Pays de Caux (Normandy) offers a landscape of cultivated plateaux dotted with thickets. Ancient farmhouses are often surrounded and protected by trees, these are the famous clos-masures. Their agricultural function is disappearing, but the rows of beech trees are still very much present in the landscape. After a period during which most of the trees were felled (from 1950 to 1970) followed a period of replanting of “windbreaks” with the support of the public authorities and in defence of the landscape. This article analyses the values attributed today to these curtains of trees in agronomic, landscaping and environmental terms. The study was conducted within the framework of a project for the listing of the clos-masures as part of the UNESCO world heritage. The findings come from an ethnographic survey conducted in the area of Yvetot. The tree has lost its agricultural function of protecting cattle and producing wood ; it is now through the landscape and the environment that it has meaning for the farmers. This notion of common interest is a key element in the agricultural and urban revival of the clos-masures of the Pays de Caux region.

Keywords

• clos-masure
• beech tree
• windbreak
• relationship to nature
• Pays de Caux