Sauve Pitch-fork

Tradition and ancestral know-how, arts and craft industry in Languedoc-Roussillon.

Thanks to the Common Hackberry and to an ancestral know-how dating back to the 17th century, the inhabitants of Sauve have developed an ingenious way for making pitch-forks. Superb objects, made from one single piece of a hackberry tree, and completely hand-made, a Sauve pitch-fork is light in weight, easy to use, tough, doesn’t rot, and won’t injure livestock.

Sauve supplied these to the royal stables, both Imperial and then Republican. They were exported as far as Algeria for agricultural work. Today they are sold both to the general public and to professionals who use them for husbandry and in farming, and are used as an indispensable period accessory both for decoration and for the theatre.

There’s a working museum dedicated to the pitch-fork in Sauve - the Conservatory - where you can find the whole story behind the tool, from its beginning as a hackberry shoot to its final heat-treatment.
You can spend a day there round the hackberry-tree (for its pitch-forks) and the mulberry-tree (for its silk-worms) Visit the Conservatory, and visit the Silk Museum at St Hippolyte-du-Fort 9 km further on (the secrets of silk in the Cévennes, the growing of mulberry-trees, raising silk-worms …)

The Pitch-Fork Conservatory: + 33 (0)4 66 80 54 46

Sauve is a medieval city full of interest and of picturesque charm, and River Vidourle that goes through the village is a hit with fishermen and canoeists alike. There are many trails and walks, like the ‘sea of rocks’ above the village, that can be done on foot, on horse-back, or on mountain-bike.

The Sauve intercommunal Tourist Office: + 33 (0)4 66 77 57 51