Prehistory museum Le Grand Pressigny

For your holiday in France

Featured gite / houses

Les Balcons in Le Grand Pressigny itself is a substantial 3 bed room house over two floors with a delightful raised balcony offering lovely views to give you a countryside feel but with all the village amenities.

Click here to visit owner's web site

The Old Walnut Mill Delightful, spacious 2 bedroom 19th Century Loire Valley house for rent in the village of Barrou only 10 minutes from Le Grand Pressigny .The village’s location halfway between the regional capitals of Tours and Poitiers makes it an ideal base to explore the Loire Valley and Vienne.

Click here to visit owner's web site

http://www.loirevalleyexperiences.com

Le Grand Pressigny Prehistory Museum

After many years and euros the 'Musee de la Prehistoire', built within the chateau grounds of Le Grand Pressigny finally opened its doors in September 2009. The reason for its location here is that Prehistoric man lived in this area - attracted by the abundant high-quality flint which could be fashioned into superb tools.

Its opening has caused a bit of debate within the local community - much of it centring around the modern design addition to the existing chateau. We reserve judgement on this issue as it does work internally and provides a great location for what is ostensibly a collection of rocks! The rock in question here is flint and Le Grand Pressigny flint ( 'silex pressignien' ) is probably the most famous siliceous material in Europe as well as the most widely distributed raw material in prehistory.

The architect has successfully blended the new building onto the existing one and has probably been allowed to be over generous with the space allocated, making the building itself part of the exhibition. The majority of exhibits are actually housed within older parts of the chateau accessed from the new building.

In the underground caves there is a video show showing how to 'work' the flint on display and you can understand why it was popular as tools and weapons.

On the first floor a great deal of space is allocated to the history of the chateau - the picture on the right is a copy of one displayed there - although this information and indeed all the information within the museum is only in French it is our understanding that for 2010 new audio translation services will be available.

On the ground floor there is another video presentation area and access to the rooms of the existing chateau that will be home to temporary exhibitions.

The museum is open every day except Tuesdays, all the year round.

When visiting Tours pop into the The Hôtel Gouin on Rue de Commerce as it also gives some details of the importance of both here and nearby Barrou to palaeontologists. The building itself is worth a look.

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