Aubusson and Felletin: The Cité of Tapestry and the Weavers of the Creuse

Required Activities

• In the Nef des Tentures, a hall 600 m2 and seven metres high, find La Millefleurs à la licorne, the oldest known tapestry of the Marche, woven between 1480 and 1510, and work forward through the trompe-l'oeil settings to the 21st-century pieces

• At the Manufacture Robert Four in Aubusson, watch a lissier working a low-warp loom from the back of the cloth against an artist's cartoon, and ask how the four-handed method splits the work between the artist who drew it and the weaver who reads it

• At Felletin, go into the Filature de laines Terrade on the bank of the Creuse, one of the last artisanal wool spinning mills working in France, and watch fleece being carded and dyed into yarn, then find the Ateliers Pinton, the last manufactory in the town and the one that wove the 22 m by 12 m Christ in Glory for Coventry Cathedral

• In the église du Moutier at Felletin, find the chapelle des lissiers and its votive paintings, the only surviving work of the Felletin cartoon-painters, then pick out the 15th-century wall paintings in the nave