Lyons Safari

23^rd - 26^th May 2003

Lyon (why do the English have to put an S on the end?), the second city in France, developed at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône. In 1450 Charles VII granted the city a monopoly on the sale of silk throughout the Holy Roman Empire and the industry developed from the 1530s but particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries in the Croix-Rousse area. Together with Vieux Lyon, the old city, this forms the heart of a World Heritage site. The safari started in the foyer of the Hotel Ibis Lyon Centre Perrache on Friday evening for dinner in the adjacent Brasserie Georges and an orientation talk from Sue Hayton. The Brasserie is a long established business but with a later art deco interior.

Saturday morning covered the city centre and was largely commercial. The Gare de Perrache was built in the early 1850s for the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranée railway. The facade has now been obscured by a modern interchange, rail, metro, tram, bus, and the station has new entrances. From the walkways from the interchange there is access to an older station at right angles for the line to St Etienne where part of an early round house remains. Outside is the Terminus Hotel with a fine art nouveau interior. The Rue Victor Hugo leads to the Place Ampère where there is a statue to the famous electrodynamicist., and the enormous Place Bellecour with a statue of Louis XIV. The Tourist Information Office here was a police station. The flower stalls were designed in cast iron and glass so that one could see through them.

On the bank of the Saône, Quai des Celestins, there was a lively street market and a view across the river to the cathedral and the Basilica, Notre Dame de Fourvière, high on the hill behind.Returning towards Place Bellecour there is another square, Place des Jacobins, with another statue, to local celebrities, and, at the time, a typical continental double deck carousel. The Passage de L’Argue leads to the Rue de la République. The Passage (gallery) was built in the late 1820s on the site of the silver and gold thread manufacturers - hence the name. In the Rue de la République there are a number of interesting sites. The former Théatre Bellecour of 1877 became the offices of the journal, La Progrés and is now a bookshop. Nearby is the art deco facade of Le Pathé Cinema built 1932-33 on the site of a music hall. It is now a multiplex and only the facade is original. The Grand Bazar department store dates from 1886, when it replaced an earlier store of 1856, it is now part of the Printemps chain.

Only sign of demolished gas works

The post office in the Place Poncet is embellished on the outside with bas reliefs illustrating the city’s history and its workers. There are also two, now disused, air mail boxes. Inside is a vast mural with representations of large cities, London, Paris, New York, and methods of moving post, by road, rail, air and sea. Nearby is the bourse; the printing museum, housed in the old 17th century Hôtel de Ville; a mechanical clock by the premises of the jewellers, Charvet; the building where the Lumière brothers gave the second cinema show in the world; the Opera House and, in the Place des Terreaux, the present Hôtel de Ville. This is said to be the most magnificent in France and second only to Amsterdam in Europe. In the Place there is an enormous statue, Le Char de Liberté, erected in 1892 to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution. It was intended as a representation of the river Garonne for Bordeaux where it was refused. It was bought by Lyon and named ‘The Four Rivers on their way to the Ocean’.

Detail from mural in the main Post Office

Saturday afternoon began at the Croix-Paquet metro station. This is at the bottom of what was once a funicular which has been converted into a rack railway for the metro. The original use is indicated by the Café Ficelle (ficelle - string or cable). The top of the rack is one station on at Croix-Rousse, named for a pre-Revolutionary stone cross and the area of the silk workers (canuts). In the Place Croix-Rousse there is a statue of Jacquard. It was windy and there was a miniature sandstorm. The Maison des Canuts in the Rue d’Ivry is the silk workers’ co-operative.

The hillside is characterised by the covered passageways (traboules from trans ambulare or walking through) down the hillside. They were used to protect the silk from the weather. The Place Chardonnet contains a memorial to the Count de Chardonnet who invented artificial silk. On Place Sathonay there are two water fountains cast at Le Creusot in 1823. The Maison Brunet in Place Rouville is a typical silk workers’ dwelling with 365 windows. The Condition Publique de Soie at 3 Rue St. Polycarpe was the public silk packing works of 1814. The porch is decorated with mulberry leaves and a plaque commemorates Louis Pasteur who worked on eliminating the silk worm disease, pebrine. In the Rue de Martin there is the Martinière School for boys and a memorial to Major Martin who helped found it from his fortune made in India. The Lumière brothers were pupils here. Further on in the Rue Martinière the girls school features mosaic panels. In the same street is the Salle Rameau, an early example in Lyon of Hennebique fireproof construction, with mosaics of rhetoric and music. Lastly, the house at 48 Quai St Vincent is covered in a trompe l’oeil painting featuring 24 characters significant in the city’s history.

Sunday morning started on the wrong side of the tracks in the industrial Perrache area. The Brasserie (brewery) Georges has been in the Rue Dugas Montbel since 1836. The facade is decorated with two large barrels which advertise its purpose. Between the Rue Claudius Collonge and the Quay Rambaud on the Saône the bus garage was originally part of a ship-building yard. Close by are two prisons, Prison St Joseph in large blocks and Prison St Paul built with radiating wings from a central core (panopticon system). Also close by is a sponge processing factory which appears now to be a warehouse only. There is a large social housing development on the Rues Ravat, Quivogne and Smith and another off the Quai Perrache. The origins of the Smith street name are obscure but a John Smith was at the cannon foundry in 1793. Further on is the Marché de Gros (Wholesale Market) of the 1930s in a typical style, and the meat market. Across the Rhône by the Pont Pasteur the Halle Tony Garnier dominates. Designed by the Lyon architect Tony Garnier in 1914 it was first used for the Exposition Universelle and then as a munitions factory and did not become a market until 1928. It is now used for cultural and commercial events.

Lamp detail at the Halle Tony Garnier

‘A Walk in the East’ occupied Sunday afternoon. The tram T2 went from Perrache to Grange Blanche. This is a medical area the main feature of which is the Hôpital Edouard Herriot designed in part by Tony Garnier and built between 1910 and 1933. It consists of two or three storey art deco pavilions in reinforced concrete, connected by underground passages. There are three statues in the entrance courtyard of Garnier, Herriot and, the only medical one, Dr Goule. Edouard Herriot appears frequently in Lyon. He was Mayor for many years and instigated many projects and also Premier of France.

Along the main road to the west is the Institute Lumière. There is a modern monument outside Lumière senior’s house depicting aspects of the film industry. The works were behind. This was the Rue St Victor but has been renamed Rue Premier Film. The brothers, Louis and Auguste married sisters, daughters of the brewer Alphonse Winckler, but their house next door was demolished for road widening which never took place. Not far away, but it became a wet walk, is the Manufacture des Tabacs, an impressive building enlivened by decorative brickwork.

Further west, near Part-Dieu, there is an impressive art deco building in Place Guichard, the Bourse du Travail, with a mosaic on one side featuring local dignitaries, including Edouard Herriot, Tony Garnier and the Lumière brothers. On the Avenue de Saxe is the former garage of Ets. Bollache, Laroque et Cie. The ground floor was car showrooms and above were six floors of garage space with housing behind. Recently it has been converted into an up-market restaurant. The Prefecture du Rhône is also on the Avenue de Saxe. Built to impress, no expense has been spared either inside or out. On the way back to Perrache the tram passes another garage building still in use by Citröen as a showroom.

Mosaic on Social Housing

Monday morning’s programme was Old Lyon and Fourvière on the right bank of the Saône. The Gare St Paul was built in the 1870s to serve lines to the west. It is now rather run down. Nearby is a former funicular station no longer in use. As at Croix-Paquet there is an adjacent Café Ficelle. The old city comprises many narrow streets with interesting buildings. One section subsided down the steep hill and the area has been left as a park. The St Just funicular leads up to Place des Minimes named after a 16th century convent where there was a cattle market. It is now a good view point. Close by are important Roman remains not discovered until the 1930s. The theatre could hold 10,000 spectators. Back at the bottom of the St Just funicular the adjacent Fourvière funicular leads up the hill in a more northerly direction. On the hill top the Tour Métallique was erected for tourists to the exposition of 1894 with a ground level restaurant and a viewing gallery at the top. Since 1953 it has been used as a transmitting station and since 1963 has been closed to the public.The Tramway de Loyasse was built in 1900 to connect the funicular with the cemetery at Loyasse. It is now a pleasant walkway with fine views. The Bridge of the Four Winds, aptly named on the day, crosses a ravine. The return down the funicular ended the safari.

Local name plate

Bill Firth, GLIAS Newsletter 206 June 2003

Photos all taken by Dan Hayton, (c) April 2003

City Safaris are organised by Heritage of Industry Ltd, 80 Udimore Road, Rye, Sussex, TN31 7DY

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