Le Bourguet

Overview

A commune of the Var (83), arrondissement of Draguignan, canton of Flayosc, part of the Lacs et Gorges du Verdon community of communes (since 2017) and of the Verdon Regional Nature Park. Postcode 83840. It is one of the smallest communes in France by population.

Where to stay in Le Bourguet

Compare and book on the major platforms. Hotels, campsites and gîtes in Le Bourguet will soon have their verified listing on LiveVerdon.

What to see, what to do

Chapel of Sainte-Anne

A small Provençal Romanesque chapel (less than 5 m high, about 15 m long), with a half-dome apse and a vaulted nave of three bays, whose main structure goes back to the 12th century. It was an annexe of the Templar commandery of Comps-sur-Artuby and stands, on the edge of a steep drop, against the communal cemetery. Registered as a historic monument by order of 15 October 1971 (Mérimée ref. PA00081549), owned by the commune. It is the commune's only protected monument.

Parish church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption

The village parish church; under the Ancien Régime the parish belonged to the diocese of Senez and depended on Castellane. Sources differ on the date of the present building (18th or late 19th century).

Old fortified village of Bagarry

The remains of the original medieval village, perched at about 1,082 metres: a fortified rocky outcrop, a section of rubble-stone wall, a fragment of the semicircular apse of a former church and habitation terraces yielding archaeological material. The site's church of Saint-Pierre was given around 1035-1040 to the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Marseille. The castrum had 40 hearths in 1278 before being ruined by the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War, then abandoned in the last quarter of the 15th century in favour of the valley. Mérimée ref. IA83001150.

Château du Bourguet (today the inn)

The village's former château, with a pepper-pot corner turret overhanging the street, now converted into an inn (hotel-restaurant).

Château de Valcros

Ruins overlooking the ravine, at the foot of the Rocher de la Forteresse, at the western end of the commune, with a chapel. Tradition connects the site with the Templars, but this is not established; the surviving buildings are generally dated to the 17th-18th centuries.

Evescat bridge and Jabron gorges

An old bridge over the Jabron on the boundary with Comps-sur-Artuby, reached by a made-up path (footbridge and handrail). In this stretch the Jabron cuts a small canyon, prized for the coolness of its pools.

La Faye woods

A wooded area good for walking, dotted with jagged rock formations, in the clean air characteristic of the upper Verdon.

History of Le Bourguet

The name 'Bourguet' means 'little town', from the Latin burgus (a fortified place): it refers to the way the population regrouped in the valley after the hilltop village was abandoned. The commune was indeed long called Saint-Pierre-de-Bagarry, after the church of Saint-Pierre of the medieval castrum, until about the middle of the 16th century. The castrum of Bagarry appears in a charter of donation to Ampus dated between 984 and 1030; its church of Saint-Pierre was given to the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Marseille around 1035-1040. The site reached its peak in 1278 (40 hearths), before being struck by the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War: by 1471 only three households were left. Raymond de Reillanne was lord of the place in 1297, and Le Bourguet was attached to the viguerie of Castellane in 1342. After the hilltop site was abandoned, resettlement took place in the valley from 1460 onwards (23 houses occupied by about 1540). The commune has since seen a long demographic decline, falling to a few dozen inhabitants.