Well
The oldest written mention of the Puits de l’Auture well was in 1096, in the charter of the Abbey of Vaux-sur-Mer, in the name of fossam lupaturam, or “wolf pit”. Legend has it that the local lord would drive wolves into the well after hunting them in the surrounding woods. The term could also come from lupatura, which means “carrion”. Since the 19th century, the picturesque nature of the place has attracted numerous visitors, especially on stormy days.
Puits de l’Auture has been the subject of many myths. The most famous is undoubtedly the story that the pirate Lauture used it to hide his gold. Another claims that the devil took refuge there after being tricked, and the waves that spout out of it in heavy storms are simply the manifestation of his wrath. In a sadder tale, two young lovers from families that were as cruel as they were competitive with one another are said to have thrown themselves into Puits de l’Auture to escape their tragic lives, because their parents were opposed to their marriage, most likely for religious reasons.
This account assuredly echoes the disputes that occurred between Catholics and Protestants throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.
Stilted fishing huts
In Saint Palais-sur-Mer, people have been fishing from these stilted huts since at least the 18th century. The General Treaty of Fish, written by Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau in 1769, refers to this practice. These huts were small wooden constructions that were used by women and girls. A handful of stilted huts appeared in a different form in the early 20th century and then, in the 1930s, this fishing technique was perfected. These platforms topped with huts sit on stilts anchored in rocks and/or sand.
Some of them hang over the ocean and can be reached along pontoons that may be as long as several dozen metres. With the goal of preventing their disorderly spread, there has been a cap on the number of fishing huts on stilts since 1936.
Nowadays, there are 34 regulated locations. On two occasions – during the storms of 1999 and 2010 – the raging ocean tore these iconic fishing structures apart. Stilted fishing huts have been on France’s inventory of intangible cultural heritage since 2021.
Villa Primavera
Built in 1892 by Louis-Jean d’Auby, Villa Primavera was originally just a lovely cottage looking out onto Le Concié Cove. That Parisian businessman had the first villas built in Saint-Palais-sur-Mer’s Le Platin district at the turn of the 20th century, as well as Béthanie, a religious structure, in the 1920s.
In 1905, he and his wife transformed Villa Primavera. Driven by their passion for mediaeval history and Romanesque Art, they gave it a Romanesque Revival look, complete with columns with capitals, round arches over picture windows and a hexagonal tower inspired by the churches of Saintonge. The work was performed based on plans by the architect Félicien Balley.
The hotel that now occupies the building, along with a restaurant, was created in 1959.
Bunkers by Puits de l’Auture
Behind the Puits de l’Auture well, some bunkers still exist today, including one inside the restaurant on the other side of Avenue de la Grande Côte. At the start of the Occupation, the Kriegsmarine (the navy of Nazi Germany) has positioned artillery guns there to control navigation on the estuary. The bunkers were built from July 1943 to the first quarter of 1944.
Before the war, a villa named Les Embruns stood on that plot. It has since been destroyed, but it was the place where Trotsky took refuge from July to October 1933 when he fled assassins from Stalin’s secret police. Trotsky was later killed in Mexico City, in 1940.