Peach walls

Les Murs-à-Pêches is a unique site in the Paris region of 38 hectares of long orchards separated by walls designed in the 15th century to store the heat of the Sun. On the vast Montreuil plateau, each narrow and elongated plot, oriented north-south, was enclosed by a 2.70 m high wall topped with a protection of tiles. The south walls, which closed the plot, are set back from the road to maintain a usable side.

These walls are floated with plaster in order to increase their thermal inertia, that is to say their heat retention power. Accumulating solar energy during the day, peach walls restore it at night, which reduces the risk of frost and accelerates ripening. As the Montreuil basement is rich in gypsum, plaster is inexpensive and easy to produce.
The thickness of the walls, built on a foundation to avoid rising damp, varies from 55 cm at the base to 25 cm at the top. A system of removable wooden roofs provides protection against spring rains which favor the peach blister. Rolling mats isolate the fruit trees during the cold nights.
In these isolated plots, the temperature is commonly 8 to 12 ° C higher than room temperature.

Before Louis XIV, the best exposed walls of Montreuil were only lined with pear trees. A Louis XIV musketeer, the Chevalier Girardot, retired to Bagnolet and Malasie, near Montreuil. He built parallel walls 8 meters apart (perhaps inspired by the vegetable gardens of Versailles ...). These walls had a chaperone at their upper end. He had had spokes sealed from old carriage wheels, he was laying planks or mats on them. Girardot was very active in obtaining the best, the most beautiful and the earliest fruit.
Although he did not neglect the cultivation of any of the esteemed fruits, he was particularly attached to that of peaches.

He went to Versailles every year to present them to the King. Its Bagnolet garden becomes a place for strolling: in crowds, from the fruit season, people went for peaches and admired the beauty of the espaliers.
Emulation spread to the neighboring cantons: that of Montreuil devoted himself entirely to the cultivation of fruit.

There will be up to 500 hectares of cultivated land in the Murs-à-Pêches. This microclimate has for centuries allowed the production of peaches, pears, apples, flowers, aromatic and medicinal plants which supported entire generations of Montreux peasants (87% of the population in the middle of the 19th century).
In 1953, there were still 150 farming families. Classified as a green space reserve in 1976, the area has become 80% urbanizable since the Ile de France regional master plan of 1994. Year of creation of the Murs-à-Pêches association (MAP) to preserve this sector of urbanization.

Many other associations are mobilizing around this space today, including Lez'Arts dans les murs, also a member of Union REMPART.