les grottes du Quéroy

The Quéroy caves are at Chazelles, in the Charente, on the edge of the Bois Blanc forest. They were carved about twelve million years ago in fissured Jurassic limestone, by the waters of the Touvre, which now flows about 80 metres lower. A walker, Lise Bosnot, discovered them by chance in 1892 while chasing a fox with her dog. Norbert Casteret then explored them, before they opened to the public.

The network has about thirty halls over about 1,200 metres of galleries, decorated with draperies, stalactites and stalagmites. The temperature stays cool, between 8 and 12 °C. During the Second World War, the Resistance sheltered there. Excavations carried out from 1972 to 1980 revealed Palaeolithic animal bones, including reindeer and saiga antelope, as well as traces of occupation in the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age. Late Bronze Age vases are kept in the museum of Angoulême.

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