A working quarry
Deep in the Val d'Enfer, the Sarragan quarry is the last one in Provence still worked underground. The pale limestone of the Alpilles is still extracted, sawn and carved on this very site.
The quarry
The Sarragan quarry is still very much in operation. Every week, blocks come out of the hillside, travel down to the sawing yard, and pass into the hands of the stonemasons. This is not a museum, and it has not been landscaped for visitors: it is a place of work, with its machines, its dust and its people.
It is also, and this is far rarer, the last quarry in the Alpilles still worked in underground galleries, and the only one in the whole Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region to be worked that way. Beneath the roof, monolithic pillars twenty to twenty-five metres tall hold up the hill. The rock is taken from the top down, exactly as it always has been here.
The stone that comes out carries the name of the place: Baux stone. A soft Burdigalian limestone, white and golden, fine-grained, faintly shelly. It built Glanum, it built Arles, and it is building still.
150+
years of continuous quarrying in this hillside
25m
the height of the monolithic pillars holding the roof
1
the only quarry still worked underground in the region
100%
extracted, sawn and carved on site
History
Quarrying stone in the Val d'Enfer is nothing new. The Sarragan quarry is the last living link in a very long chain.
Antiquity
Stone is thought to have been quarried here as early as the 2nd century BC. The soft limestone of the Alpilles went on to build Glanum, and then Arles.
19th c.
The quarry was opened more than a century and a half ago, by hand, with the escoude, the long pick of the Provençal quarrymen, which left in the rock the regular grooves you can still read on the walls today.
20th c.
Machine cutting took over from the arm. The pace changed; the gesture did not. The block is still carved out of the solid mass, eased loose, and brought out whole.
Today
All around, the quarries of the Val d'Enfer have fallen silent, been converted or closed. Sarragan still extracts, saws and carves, and still opens its gates a few days a year, so that this craft is not spoken of only in the past tense.
The craft
Everything happens here. A block never travels far from the place it was cut loose.
Under the roof, the chain cutter traces the slots that isolate a block within the solid rock. It is eased loose, tipped, and drawn out. The pillars left standing, monoliths of several hundred tonnes, carry the weight of the hill.
The block goes to the sawing yard, where it is cut to the sizes ordered: slabs, cladding, rubble, dressed blocks. The saw reveals the grain of the stone, its colour, and its fossil shells.
Then comes the carving. Columns, balusters, door and window surrounds, cornices, sinks, copings, restoration pieces matched to the original: from plain walling stone to a moulding taken off a listed monument, the commission dictates the gesture.
The stone
Baux stone is a Burdigalian calcareous molasse (Miocene): a soft, fine-grained rock, born of an ancient sea whose shells it still carries. Freshly quarried it works easily; exposed to the air it hardens and takes on a patina.
Its colour runs from cream white to deep gold depending on the bed. It is what gives the villages of the Alpilles their particular light at the end of the day.
In pictures
The galleries, the workshop, the material up close, the visits. Click any image to open it full screen.
Here, we don't make stone. We go and find it where it settled, twenty million years ago.
Visits & outreach
A craft that is never shown eventually disappears. So the quarry regularly welcomes schoolchildren, students, fellow craftspeople and the curious, always accompanied, never on a walk-in basis.
Every spring
Since 2021 the quarry has taken part in the JEMA alongside the village of Les Baux-de-Provence. It hosts a forum devoted to the heritage restoration trades: carving demonstrations, meetings with professionals, and an introduction to the sector and its training paths.
Every autumn
For one weekend, the quarry and its carving workshop open to the public. A rare chance to go down beneath the roof and watch quarrymen and stonemasons at work on their own ground.
By appointment
From primary classes to sixth form, and students of architecture, geology, heritage conservation or the building crafts: educational visits are arranged on request and tailored to the age and syllabus of the group.
By appointment
Architects, project managers, restoration contractors, heritage associations, film crews: the quarry receives professional visits and location scouting requests by appointment.
Arrange a visitPlease note: this is an active industrial site. It is not open for walk-in visits, and entering the galleries unaccompanied is strictly forbidden. All visits are by appointment, or during the open days announced in advance.
Visitor info
Monday to Thursday8am to 12pm, 1.30pm to 5pm
Friday8am to 12pm, 1.30pm to 4pm
Saturday and SundayClosed
These are the hours of the quarry's own activity: office, workshop and order collection. The site is not open for walk-in visits, please make an appointment before travelling.
The map is provided by OpenStreetMap. It only loads when you ask for it.
Contact
A quote for a building project, an order of stone, a school or professional visit to arrange: write to us and we will get back to you.
For a wall, a coping, a column or the restoration of a monument: let's talk about your project.