The Grange aux Dimes at La Cassagne, some 20km from Sarlat, is a remarkable rural edifice protected as a Monument Historique.
It is thought to have been built by the Templar Order, and more specifically by the Commanderie de Saint-Jean de Condat.
The barn was restored in the 15th century and used as stables for the château.
Nicknamed the Temple, this gentleman's "barn" consists of a rectangular hall with three rib-vaulted bays, dating back to the 13th century.
The building was used by the Church to store the proceeds of the tithe collection, hence its name!
The lower hall is quite simply exceptional, with its double arches and archaic cross-beams.
The barn was bought by Olivier Chopin de Janvry, an architect in Paris, who restored it magnificently and surrounded it with a garden. Fascinated by the cartoonist SEM, he exhibited all his works here!
Every year, from July 15 to August 31, the Grange Dimière presents an exhibition of lithographs, drawings and posters by SEM, a renowned caricaturist of the Belle Epoque.
He drew over a thousand heads of people, virtually all of them identified: politicians, military leaders, kings and queens, artists, painters, composers, writers, actors... and crossed paths with Cocteau, Rodin, Coco Chanel, Mounet-Sully Sacha Guitry, Pierre Brasseur, Victorien Sardou and Colette and Pierre Loti, among others.
La Grange Dimière
La Cassagne
24120 Terrasson-La Villedieu
Tél. : 05 53 51 66 43
Hors saison tél. : 01 39 76 90 37
https://www.dordogne-perigord-tourisme.fr/offres/la-grange-dimiere-la-cassagne-fr-2940801/
