The youngest have wide eyes in front of the characters who stroll through the park in period costume, in particular when they discover the men in bathing suits. The crowd, hypnotized by the glow of methodically struck metal, crowds into the overheated blacksmith’s workshop. In the space reserved for the funfair, the children run from one merry-go-round to another, like the 1900 caterpillar or the Ferris wheel.
the Bournat park, located in Bugue in the middle of the Périgord Noir, offers an astonishing dive into daily life in 1900. And for its thirtieth anniversary, which it celebrates throughout the summer, it is a resounding success. ” Today [mercredi] we will still welcome between 3,500 and 4,000 visitors”, rejoices the owner of the site, Pascal Souriau, who expects a record season with 150,000 to 160,000 visitors expected this year, better than the 135,000 in 2019.
“Everything is well presented”
“It’s the second time we’ve been to this park, and we find the same pleasure as the first time” tells us “Josy”, who came from neighboring Gironde with her friend “Domi”. “It’s even better since there are new rides. We rediscover old trades, we taste products, especially beer that we cannot find elsewhere. And everything is well highlighted, well explained, with meaning: the bread-making workshop follows the exhibition around the harvest. »
The festivities linked to the anniversary of the park, such as the night with fireworks scheduled for next Sunday, partly explain this rebound in attendance after two years of crisis linked to the pandemic. But the success of Le Bournat is above all based on its unequaled offer in France, since the site has literally reconstituted a Périgord village as it could have existed in 1900, with around fifteen craftsmen and more than forty stone buildings, and a carnival. with real merry-go-rounds dating from the beginning of the 20th century.
Craftsmen trained on site by the elders
This park was created in 1992 by Pascal Souriau’s father, Paul-Jean Souriau, when he was… over 70 years old. “My father was a compulsive collector, kindly crazy, remembers the owner of the site. He started buying old objects, tools, agricultural machinery, in the 1960s. He accumulated thousands of objects, which he piled up in a large shed at our house, and at the age of 70 he wondered what to do with it all…”
Fashionable in the 1980s and 90s, he first thought of creating an eco-museum. Then said to himself that it would be a pity not to make all these objects “live”. This is where he came into contact with retired craftsmen, enthusiastic about the idea of showing how people worked at the time. “He built his park and brought in a blacksmith, a cutler, a miller, a clog maker…, all retired. Faced with the success met from the outset, it was necessary to gradually professionalize all these little people. “Our craftsmen are now all employees, who have been trained on site by the elders. »
Craftsmen who are not there just for decoration
This is the case of Anthony Barret, 29, a baker by training. “I arrived here five years ago,” he says. I knew how to make bread, of course, but I had to learn how to work in a wood oven, which is more complicated. It takes an average of four years to master the oven to perfection, in order to obtain uniform heating from top to bottom. We heat the oven with the wood for two hours, then we remove the embers, and we only use the hot stone to bake the bread for three-quarters of an hour, at falling heat. Here we make country bread with natural sourdough – which I make myself from apple peelings – and which we sell to customers. »
Because at Bournat, the craftsmen are not there (only) for the decor. They manufacture and sell their products, such as the oil mill Hervé Olivier who presses Périgord walnuts by hand to make oil. You can also buy soaps, personalized knives…
“And each time we try to reconstruct the workshops as they were in 1900, insists Pascal Souriau, like the blacksmith’s workshop which was recreated by a craftsman who described to us what his father’s workshop was like. For the others, we mainly based ourselves on photos. All the photos also show us that it was a mess at the time, and I would like to go further to reconstruct this atmosphere, even if it is a little more complicated today…”
“Life was very hard at that time”
While visitors come to Le Bournat for a bit of nostalgia, and to show their children or grandchildren endangered skills, Pascal Souriau recalls that “life was very hard at that time; people started working at 14, and they never stopped, we must not forget that. »
Regularly challenged on animal welfare, the owner of the premises also ensures that his oxen and horses are well treated. Better than they were at the beginning of the 20th century. “But you have to train the calves well so that they become draft oxen, otherwise we will never show how they were used in 1900” defends Pascal Souriau.
The rides repaired by the park’s craftsmen
Now spread over 7 hectares, the park is growing regularly. “We continue to buy old rides, when we find them, which is becoming more and more difficult…”
Just as it is becoming more and more difficult to find repairers for failing parts. “On Monday, there was a wrong maneuver by an operator on the track, and the bars were twisted, well it was our own blacksmith who repaired them, because no one would be able to do it anymore, explains Pascal Souriau. The wheels of this merry-go-round were made with Ford T wheels, made of wood, but there is only one wheelwright left in France capable of making these wheels. The day when there will be no more, we will have to train one to continue to maintain our rides… ”
Anticipating is the role of the site owner, who is already planning towards 2024 and the Paris Olympics. “For us, it will be a themed year around what the Olympic Games were like in 1900.”
Parc du Bournat, open from April to October, 191, allée Paul-Jean Souriau, Le Bugue.