Illier and Laramade

Municipality of Illier-et-Laramade - Altitude: 622 m
Location: in the heart of the Vicdessos and Siguer valleys and a few kilometers from Tarascon-sur-Ariège.
Number of inhabitants: 23
Distances: Vicdessos 11 km-Tarascon-sur-Ariege 13 km
Formerly two separate Pyrenean villages, Illier and Lamarade which were quickly merged into a single commune, Illier-et-Laramade, part of the Sabarthès zone.
Illier is a hillside village of the type that was established before the year 12. But it appears little in medieval charters and perhaps it was not very important. There were only XNUMX tax centers there at the end of the XNUMXth century. The church is dedicated to Saint Orens, a XNUMXth century figure, a hermit then bishop of Auch, originally from Urgell. This dedication suggests an ancient church and is an additional indicator of the antiquity of the village of Illier. In this church was found a splendid Romanesque wooden statue representing a virgin and child and similar to another from the XNUMXth century discovered in Andorra.
The village of Laramade is probably less ancient and does not have a church. At the end of the Middle Ages, the bridge of Laramade or Pas d'Aris constituted the limit between the communities of the Vicdessos valley and those of the Siguer valley: many negotiations took place on this bridge. In the 1870th century, Laramade had an iron forge in which a new process developed in the mid-1911th century to increase productivity was tested. Despite its improvements, the Laramade forge disappeared after 1932. From XNUMX to XNUMX, when the tramway ran from Tarascon to Auzat, Laramade was a station.
Town hall opening hours: Monday: 14 p.m. - 16 p.m. Thursday: 9 a.m. - 11 a.m.