FRDEITEN
Villages / Valais / Entremont district / Chemin

Chemin

Canton of Valais · District: Entremont · 241 inhabitants in Chemin-Dessus (1.1.2025, figure of the municipality of Val de Bagnes). No published figure for Chemin-Dessous
Part of the municipality of Val de Bagnes
Origin of the name Founding Historical timeline Population over time Must-see historical sites Remains Sources and references Nearby villages

Origin of the name Chemin

The place appears on 17 May 1333 in the Savoy accounts in the form « Chimyn » (« in loco seu territorio vacato de Chimyn »), in connection with the search for silver ore. It has been suggested that the name comes from the Latin « caminus », furnace, because the mountain, where iron ore was smelted, « devait fumer », must have smoked.[1]

Founding of Chemin

Chemin refers to the villages perched on Mont Chemin, above Martigny and the Rhône plain. Chemin-Dessus, at 1'131 m, is a village of the former municipality of Vollèges, which has been part of the municipality of Val de Bagnes since 2021. Chemin-Dessous, on the north slope, belongs to the municipality of Martigny. The founder of the villages is not known. The mountain owes its history to its mines: slag near the village is attributed to the Roman period, iron was certainly mined there in the 6th and 7th centuries, and in 1333 Savoy had silver sought there. Iron was still mined in the 19th century and then during the Second World War. From 1895, the municipality of Vollèges profited from the hotel trade with the resorts of Lein and then Chemin. Around the turn of the 20th century five hotels stood between Chemin and the Col du Lein, of which only the Hôtel Beau-Site, built in 1912, survives.[1][2][3][4][5]

History of Chemin

Antiquity. Slag heaps near the village of Chemin are attributed to ore mining in the Roman period.[1]

6th-7th centuries. Analysis of the slag shows that iron ore was certainly mined on Mont Chemin. A heap of Merovingian slag remains near the Chez Larze mine.[1]

1333. On 17 May, the Savoy accounts pay a master miner, Hoder de Larz, to search for silver ore at « Chimyn », in the domain of Sembrancher.[1]

1842-1855. An isolated mass of iron ore discovered at Les Planches is mined until exhausted.[1]

1851-1861. Mining works at the Couloir Collaud and at Chez Larze.[1]

1895. The municipality of Vollèges begins to profit from the hotel trade, with the creation of the resorts of Lein and then Chemin.[2]

around 1900. Around the turn of the 20th century, five hotels stand between Chemin and the Col du Lein.[5]

1912. Anatole Pellaud-Crettex builds the Hôtel-Pension Beau-Site, the only one of these hotels to survive. His family runs it until 1982, with a break of about ten years.[5]

1939-1945. During the Second World War, iron mining at the Grandes Ferondes, on the north slope of Mont Chemin, enjoys its most prosperous period. The magnetite ore is brought down by cableway to Le Guercet in the Rhône plain, and trucks are loaded above Chemin-Dessous (photographs from October 1941).[1]

1982. Urs Vuilleumier buys the Hôtel Beau-Site.[5]

2005. The Hôtel Beau-Site adds a seminar room and becomes the first hotel in Valais heated with wood pellets backed by solar power.[5]

2021. Vollèges merges with Bagnes: Chemin-Dessus is now part of the municipality of Val de Bagnes.[3]

Population of Chemin

Sources and references: [4]

Population of Chemin
2025241 (Chemin-Dessus, 1 January)

Historic sites in Chemin

Hôtel-Pension Beau-Site. Hotel built in 1912 by Anatole Pellaud-Crettex at about 1'150 m, the last survivor of the hotels built on Mont Chemin around 1900.[5]

Sentier des Mines. Educational trail starting from Chemin-Dessus and winding among larches, with eleven panels on mining, nature and animals, passing ruins linked to mining.[4][6]

Remains in Chemin

Iron mines of Mont Chemin. Galleries of Chez Larze, the Couloir Collaud and the Grandes Ferondes, worked at various periods. Near Chez Larze a heap of Merovingian slag remains. A gallery of Chez Larze lies below the Chemin-Dessus-Vens forest road.[1]

Sources

  1. Minaria Helvetica 18b/1998, numéro spécial « Mont Chemin » (Société suisse d'histoire des mines. Articles de Stefan Ansermet, Pascal Tissières, Olivier Guex et éditorial)
  2. Charles A. Burky, « Vollèges, un cas d'industrialisation d'une commune montagnarde », Geographica Helvetica 11, 1956
  3. Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse, « Vollèges » (Jean-Yves Gabbud, version du 21.07.2021)
  4. Commune de Val de Bagnes, « Les villages » (Chemin-Dessus)
  5. Hôtel-Pension Beau-Site, « Un peu d'histoire »
  6. Verbier Tourisme, « Sentier des Mines (Vollèges) »
  7. geo.admin.ch, recherche de lieux (Chemin-Dessus et Chemin-Dessous, coordonnées et communes)

Other villages near Chemin

Missing information, or do you have a source? Suggest a correction or addition. Every submission is checked before it's published.

Suggest a change