Welcome to Casa Thomas!
We are pleased to welcome you to our EcoMuseum located in the municipality of Champorcher. Casa Thomas is a place where history, nature, and popular culture intertwine, offering a unique experience that highlights local traditions and the heritage of the territory.
The Champorcher Valley
This is the first valley on the orographic right of the Dora Baltea River that one encounters when entering the Aosta Valley from the Piedmont region. Steep and rugged, it is crossed by the Ayasse stream. At the valley floor lies Hône, a small industrial town (364 meters above sea level), offering various tourist trails and panoramic viewpoints at higher altitudes. Further up are the municipalities of Pontboset (780 m a.s.l.) and Champorcher (1427 m a.s.l.), both based on tourism and agriculture.
The great variety of rocks, combined with a less dry climate than elsewhere, makes the vegetation particularly diverse and interesting. The entire valley is known for its many tourist attractions, including numerous alpine lakes, dramatic gorges carved by torrents, largely intact villages, alpine ski facilities in the Laris basin, a cross-country ski trail, and the Mont Avic regional nature park, which includes the famous Lake Misérin and the Misérin Sanctuary within its boundaries.
Also worth a visit is the new museum in the village of Chardonney, which includes all the historical buildings of the village: the Maison Thomas, which houses the stable/hemp ecomuseum and the Lou Dzeut weaving workshop, as well as the nearby mill, chapel, oven, and old school.
The House of Thomas
In 2000, the municipality of Champorcher purchased the old House of Thomas (named after the nickname of the family that owned it), the only one that preserved the ancient loom that survived the destruction of previous decades. The aim was to turn it into an ecomuseum dedicated to hemp and alpine architecture.
The house is made up of several rooms: on the ground floor, there is the stable with a rare, fully wooden loom of archaic design; a nearby kitchen with a hearth used for cooking and cheese-making; and a cellar where freshly milked milk was stored to allow the cream to rise, which was then turned into butter.
On an intermediate floor, there was a room typically inhabited during the warmer months, when the cows were taken to alpine pastures. This room now houses the modern workshop for artisanal hemp weaving, managed by skilled weavers.
At the top level, beneath the roof, is the raccart, a larch-log room used for threshing rye and storing straw, hay, and cereal seeds. Handcrafted chests, often decorated with colorful motifs (called arches), were used to store wild aromatic herbs, clothing, and family documents, while the hard loaves of bread made at the start of winter were placed on special wooden racks (ratèlì).
The Glair Mill
Located across from the Maison de Thomas, the Glair Mill operated for many centuries, from at least the 15th century until the 1950s. It was fed upstream by water carried through an irrigation channel that drew from the nearby Ayasse stream. This channel, the Ru du Mellier, was built in 1380.
The name “Glair Mill” comes from the glairs—stone deposits left on the land by the many floods that occurred over the centuries. These floods repeatedly destroyed numerous buildings, particularly those purposely constructed nearby to harness hydraulic power, such as mills, forges, oil presses, and sawmills.
Inside the mill, visitors can admire two millstones made of assembled stone segments, used to grind maize (introduced only in the 18th century after its importation from the Americas) and especially rye, which was cultivated in terraced fields built with dry-stone walls above the village.
The mill once belonged to the Chanoux family from Mont-Blanc. Today, it is owned by the municipality of Champorcher, which restored it in 2023 with the support of European funding (RDP 2018–2022).
The Village Oven
In the wood-fired ovens of the villages, after the full moon of November or December, all the families would take turns baking rye bread, which was meant to last the entire year. Communal ovens were typically built at the entrance or center of the village to be accessible to everyone. Near the oven, there was always a fountain and a heated room (pastino) used for proofing and kneading the bread dough.
Men were in charge of fermenting the dough, while women prepared the individual loaves of rye bread, often enriched with chestnuts, caraway seeds, walnuts, hazelnuts, and more recently, chocolate or dried figs. These delicious loaves, called micche, are still appreciated today and baked on festive occasions.
In each oven, the skilled village bakers could bake between 80 and 100 loaves at a time, arranged on a refractory stone base that retained heat. Once baked, the loaves were stored in beautiful raccards—wooden structures joined at the corners—placed on special ratelì (racks) to prevent mold and protect against rodents.
At the end of the 1990s, all the ovens in Champorcher were restored, and some are still used today during celebrations such as the “Pan Ner” (Black Bread) festival in autumn or in August.
The Chapel of Chardonney
Of very ancient origin, this chapel—dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Pantaleon—was founded near the stream in 1659 by Margherita, widow of Nicolas Perruchon, so that Mass could be celebrated there following the procession on the second day of the Rogations (rituals to invoke a good harvest of agricultural products).
The chapel suffered several destructions due to floods. It was first rebuilt in 1746 near the bridge leading to the road to Laris by the Costabloz family. Between 1778 and 1781, the villagers rebuilt it again—this time in the heart of Chardonney, sheltered from floods and next to the school, where it still stands today. The reconstruction took about five months and was carried out by a master mason from Issime, Jean, son of the late Gabriel Albert.
The bell tower is topped by a unique wooden spire in the shape of a pagoda. This distinctive element was designed, commissioned, and generously funded in 1873 by Abbé Pierre Chanoux, a priest originally from the nearby village of Ronchas. He later became rector of the hospice at the Little St. Bernard Pass, where in 1897 he founded one of the first alpine botanical gardens: the Chanousia
The Village School
As early as the beginning of the 19th century, a school was active in Chardonney. It was established in 1831 thanks to a donation from a local priest, Nicolas Gontier, who served as vicar in the parish of Champorcher between 1803 and 1808.
Village schoolteachers were entrusted with dozens of children who attended lessons only during the colder months, when outdoor activities were not possible. In autumn, preparations had to be made to heat the classroom: children and their parents would go into the woods together to cut and gather firewood, allowing them to spend warm days together in class, where they also ate meals brought from home.
During the warmer months, however, children helped their relatives with farm work or accompanied the cows to the alpine pastures. The results of this literacy effort—carried out under difficult conditions since the late 18th century—proved fairly successful: according to the 1886 population register, 597 people over the age of ten (356 males and 241 females), or 51% of the population, were able to read and write.
Today, the school has been restored and is used for cultural and recreational activities.
The Kitchen and the Food
On the left, upon entering the hallway, is the kitchen, with the hearth beside which all the tools and utensils for meal preparation are arranged.
Here, the fire in the fireplace was lit to cook food and to make cheese. Meals typically consisted of soups made with wild vegetables (spinach, chicory, bistort, campion, nettles, beans, leeks, etc.), with a bit of cheese and some dry bread soaked in broth. In the 18th century, potatoes were introduced from America and repeatedly saved the population from famine.
Sometimes, meals were enriched with meat, especially in December, when the pig or an old cow was slaughtered. Salt was an essential element not only for the diet but also for preserving vegetables, lard, and cured meats in special containers made of soapstone or terracotta (called doil). Eggs were often used in omelets or vegetable salads. Dried rye bread was eaten after being broken on a special cutting board (lou tsapiet), then soaked in broth, milk, or wine.
On the hearth, skimmed milk was heated to make fresh cheese (sargnun) or aged cheese (toma). Fresh cream, on the other hand, was turned into butter. On special occasions, desserts were also prepared using simple but tasty ingredients, such as slices of dry bread soaked in milk and egg, then fried in butter and sprinkled with sugar (les croûtes dorées).
The Lived-In Stable
The stable has always been, for mountain dwellers, the place where the family spent most of their time near the animals, especially during the long winter. Back then, the warmth of cows and goats was the only source of heat, until the introduction of the cast iron stove, which only came in the 19th century. To pass the time on snowy days, people would spin or weave in the stable. They sat on small wooden benches arranged along the wall, in the corner dedicated to the veillà (evenings spent with family and neighbors).
Here they prayed, shared news from the village, and talked about male relatives who had emigrated and become hemp combers or sawyers, trying to earn enough to pay taxes and ensure the family’s survival. In the only bed made of a straw mattress, hemp sheets, and wool blankets children were born, women gave birth, and the elderly passed away. Meals, simple and modest, were eaten together at a small table, prepared in the adjoining kitchen. The most comfortable spot was occupied by the loom, to the right of the sunniest window, where one could work in natural light without the shadow of the other hand interfering with the task.
Hemp Processing
Since ancient times, hemp was cultivated in the valley floor of the Dora Baltea and in the Canavese area, where the first processing stages transformed the raw fiber into thread and balls of yarn. This involved several phases: soaking the stalks in water, drying them, extracting the fiber, combing, and finally spinning the fiber using special spinning wheels.
The yarn balls were then transported to Champorcher, where many highly skilled weavers -both men and women- produced hemp fabric (la teila de meison, in the local patois), which, in addition to domestic use, supported a modest trade with the villages of the lower Aosta Valley.
Hemp fabrics had the advantage of being cool in summer and warm in winter, which made them highly sought-after. These textiles were mainly used to make bed sheets, straw mattresses, shirts, and fine cloth for wrapping newborns or for cheese-making, and even refined liturgical vestments. The final step in the process was embroidering the family’s initials in bright colors on the fabric, in order to identify it during the annual communal laundry.
The Historic Loom
In the stable of Maison Thomas, there is still today as there was centuries ago a unique example, the only one of its kind in Europe, of a horizontal loom made entirely of wood, including the fabric advancement mechanisms.
This model dates back at least to the 13th century and features pedals that raise and lower the heddles (also made of hemp), between which the shuttle a small hand-held tool containing the weft thread is manually thrown in an alternating fashion, using an ancient technique, to weave the warp and weft threads together.
The loom was custom-built to fit the room, usually placed to the right of a window, allowing work to be done by natural light without the shadow of the other hand interfering.
The preliminary process of preparing the threads on the loom for weaving was complex. The hemp thread was used to prepare the warp on the warping frame (a set of pegs inserted into vertical wooden boards), which was then mounted onto the loom for interlacing with the weft.
The fabric thus produced was then sold to customers in the valley floor.
The Animals in the Stable
Every family raised a few animals intended to provide milk, meat, and eggs for human consumption. The number of cattle that could be kept in the stable here, three stalls near the feeding troughs (plus a smaller space for calves) depended entirely on the amount of grass and hay that could be gathered from the cultivated meadow and pasture lands, to ensure their survival.
In times of famine or adverse weather, if enough hay couldn’t be collected or the cows couldn’t be sent to the alpine pastures during the summer, one of them had to be slaughtered.
In addition to cattle and goats, wealthier families also raised a pig, from February until December, when it was slaughtered to make sausages and salami (santset), which would be consumed throughout the year. This was a time of celebration in the village, when the most perishable parts of the animal were eaten in traditional dishes called quagliette, made from offal, spices, and raisins, wrapped in savoy cabbage leaves.
Chickens were also common and provided precious eggs, a key source of animal protein. They were fed with vegetable scraps and some grass.
Sometimes a family kept one or two goats for milk, a dog to manage the cows in the pasture, and a cat to eliminate rodents that threatened food supplies.
A Community in Harmony with Nature
The community of Champorcher has always known how to adapt to extreme living conditions, in a steep and rugged territory, without wasting natural resources. Since ancient times, forests were cleared to create meadows and pastures needed for livestock; dry stone walls were built to form terraced fields where rye could be cultivated; and irrigation canals (called rus) were traced to ensure sufficient fodder for cattle in the valley’s meadows and pastures.
The traditional settlements of Champorcher were scattered across about 30 villages, located whenever possible away from avalanche-prone areas. The roads connecting them were bordered by low stone walls or wooden fences, the only territorial boundaries used to guide flocks and herds between alpine pastures and permanent dwellings.
Near the homes, gardens and courtyards were also enclosed to prevent chickens, goats, and cows from intruding on cultivated areas.
Neighborly solidarity was a necessity for everyone: in times of disaster or war, the weakest were supported by those around them.
The values of the time were very different from those of today: the frequent death of women in childbirth, as well as of young children, was regarded as a natural part of life. Everyone understood well that after every loss or disaster, life had to go on.
