History of the villages of the Lavaux-Oron district (Vaud)
The 44 documented localities of the Lavaux-Oron district, in the canton of Vaud. Each page covers the origin of the name, the main stages of its history and its remains, with sources.
Aran
Mentioned as early as 993, this Lavaux wine village became the chief place of the municipality of Villette in 1864. It is listed as a built site of national importance.
VDBelmont-sur-Lausanne
Below this promontory overlooking Lake Geneva, coal was mined in the Paudèze valley from 1771, and lignite again during both world wars.
VD · Merger 2011Bourg-en-Lavaux
Split into six communes in 1824, Cully, Epesses, Grandvaux, Riex and Villette came together again in 2011 in the canton's largest wine-growing commune.
VDBussigny-sur-Oron
Its inhabitants are nicknamed «les cabris» (the kid goats), and since 1923 the animal has appeared on the former municipality's arms, beside the stars and crescent of an old Châtillens seal.
VDCarrouge
Born where the Lausanne-Bern and Vevey-Moudon roads cross, this street village of the Jorat is home to the family farm of the poet and photographer Gustave Roud.
VDChâtillens
In 1361 a pig that had devoured a young child at Châtillens was tried in Lausanne, sentenced to death and hanged.
VDChenaux
In 1824 Chenaux was joined to Cully, forcing the town to hand over part of its wealth and leaving lasting bitterness.
VDChesalles-sur-Oron
The future General Henri Guisan owned an estate here from 1896 to 1907. Long before him, a skeleton surrounded by bronze jewellery, unearthed in 1885, shows people living here in the Bronze Age.
VDChexbres
As early as 1362, Chexbres organised its communal life around a confraternity, that of Saint-Théodule. The village is part of Lavaux, a UNESCO site since 2007.
VD · TownCully
In 967 the king of Burgundy gave Cully, then « Cusliacum », to the cathedral church of Besançon, which remained its lord until 1246.
VDÉcoteaux
In 1842 Écoteaux built its school partly with stones from its old castle, already in ruins by 1660 in the Châtelard forest.
VDÉpesses
The name Épesses is said to come from the Latin «spissa», «dense»: a thick stand of conifers reportedly covered the site before the vines.
VDEssertes
Essertes keeps the «Pierre du dos à l'âne», the largest known megalith in Switzerland: 5.6 metres high and weighing 25 tonnes.
VDFerlens
At La Rappettaz, near Ferlens, many skeletons of very large stature were dug up along with a spearhead, which became the emblem on the village's coat of arms.
VDForel (Lavaux)
Cleared in the 12th century by the Cistercians of Hautcrêt, the Monts de Villette became the municipality of Forel in 1826, run from the hamlet of Les Cornes-de-Cerf.
VDGrandvaux
Grandvaux only became a municipality in 1826, when the large parish of Villette was divided. Since 1999 it has been the «Village de l'étiquette» every September.
VD · Merger 2016Jorat-Mézières
On 30 November 2014 Carrouge, Ferlens and Mézières vote yes, while four other Vaud mergers fail on the same day.
VDLa Conversion
La Conversion station opened in 1862 on the line to Bern, a year after Lutry's on the Simplon line. The locality owes its growth to it.
VDLa Croix (Lutry)
In 1900 a photograph shows a bakery and the post office at La Croix, by the chemin du Miroir. The hamlet has had a school since 2004.
VDLa Rogivue
Called «Rubea aqua» (red water) in 1256, La Rogivue reportedly owes its name to the reddish streams of its peat bog, worked until 1969 and then bought by Pro Natura.
VDLes Cullayes
Its inhabitants, the Cullatis, are nicknamed in patois the « Rondzes Bourris », the hedge gnawers.
VDLes Monts-de-Pully
In 1638 Pernon Cherbaz, of Pully, was burned for witchcraft. Under torture she confessed to having seen the Devil on the Mont-de-Pully, near the barns of Moillebourquin.
VDLes Tavernes
First called Froideville, the village took the name Les Tavernes from an inn authorised in 1342 on the road to the Dézaley, below the abbey of Haut-Crêt.
VDLes Thioleyres
In 1266 or 1267 the bishop of Lausanne granted the monks of Hautcrêt rights over this land on condition that a village be built there: Les Thioleyres grew up around their tile works.
VD · TownLutry
Twenty-four aligned menhirs, found in 1984, and a town walled in the 13th century around a Benedictine priory: Lutry opens the Lavaux vineyards on their western side.
VDMaracon
Vaud village of the Broye bordering four Fribourg municipalities, whose territory was split in the Middle Ages into two halves held by different lords.
VDMézières
Home of the Théâtre du Jorat, the all-wooden « grange sublime » opened in 1908, and birthplace of General Henri Guisan.
VDMollie-Margot
On the heights of the Jorat, Mollie-Margot belongs to Savigny, a municipality born in 1823 when the farmers of the Monts broke away from the winegrowers of Lutry.
VDMontpreveyres
Montpreveyres grew from a priory that the canons of the Grand-Saint-Bernard founded before 1160 as a relay on the main road from Lausanne to Moudon.
VD · Merger 2012Oron
Ten communes joined under the name Oron in 2012, and Essertes followed ten years later.
VDOron-la-Ville
A Roman staging post on the road from Vevey to Avenches around 280, Oron-la-Ville lies at the foot of the château where 43 Bernese bailiffs followed one another from 1557 to 1798.
VDOron-le-Châtel
The château of Oron, built by the lords of Oron around the end of the 12th century and seat of the Bernese bailiwick from 1557 to 1798, stands on the territory of Oron-le-Châtel, not Oron-la-Ville.
VDPalézieux
In 1344 Humbert de Billens founded a market town here ringed by walls and ditches. The fortified village has become one of the most important railway hubs in the canton of Vaud.
VDPaudex
On its 49 hectares on Lake Geneva, between Pully and Lutry, Paudex grew vines until the 20th century and worked the Paudèze coal mines.
VDPuidoux
Puidoux stretches from the Dézaley vineyards, where the crenellated tower of Marsens stands, to the Lac de Bret, which has supplied Lausanne with drinking water since 1876.
VD · TownPully
In the early 2nd century a painter decorated the Roman villa of Pully with a chariot race, still visible on the shore of Lake Geneva.
VDRiex
Lavaux village where Jean-Abram Noverraz was born, the servant who followed Napoleon to St Helena and took part in 1840 in the return of his remains to France.
VDRivaz
According to tradition, Rivaz was rebuilt among the vineyards after the Tauredunum flood wave of 563. It is now the smallest municipality in Vaud by area (32 ha).
VDSaint-Saphorin (Lavaux)
The church of Saint-Saphorin stands on a 1st-century Gallo-Roman building that became a Christian mausoleum in the 5th century and a church in the 7th. The wine village grew up around it.
VDSavigny
On this plateau above 900 m, Dean Bridel reportedly saw in 1815 a « large and wild parish » without a village. Its farmers only split from Lutry in 1823.
VDServion
A farming village of the Jorat recorded since 1147, Servion launched its Revue in 1967 and opened the Café-théâtre Barnabé in 1980, a stone's throw from its zoo.
VDTreytorrens (Puidoux)
On the shore of Lake Geneva, at the foot of the Dézaley, this wine hamlet of Puidoux is home to the Testuz wine house, taken over in 2015 by the Schenk group.
VDVillette
This Lavaux wine village gave its name to a large medieval parish that took in Cully, Épesses, Grandvaux and Riex, until it was split into six municipalities in 1824.
VDVuibroye
In 1678 a delegate from Vuibroye went to Bern to ask that no church be built at Oron. Badly received, the delegates were jailed for twenty-four hours.