Avenue Thiers and the ‘English colony’ in Grasse

The construction of avenue Thiers in the 1860s allowed Grasse to extend to the east and was the catalyst for the creation of the ‘English colony’.

The old path north-east as it is today. The stream flows behind the grill on the mill building at the end.

Population growth meant that Grasse ran

out of space on its hillside knoll in the nineteenth century. It was impossible to expand to the south, and difficult to the west and north. In the east, extension was not only difficult because of the steep and unstable valley of the Riou Blanquet but in that direction there was only Vence and then the imminent border with the kingdom of Savoy. Only one small bridge crossed the stream, well above avenue Thiers on what is now Traverse de Micocoulier.

But in 1860 France’s border suddenly changed. In return for his wartime help against the Austrians, Napoleon III acquired the county of Nice from Sardinia-Piedmont, and the town and the new département of Alpes-Maritimes of which it became a part decided that a new road to the east towards the city of Nice was needed.

It’s a good story, but it doesn’t seem very plausible when you see where the old border was, following the courses of the Var and Esteron rivers:

In reality it looks to me more like a development opportunity, with financiers scenting a profit. A massive retaining wall, up to 15 metres high, had to be built across the valley, until then only crossed by a single small bridge.

It supports not only the new road but also a row of substantial buildings, many still there today. I have been unable to find any illustrations of the building of the road, but even if the then-new technology of steam shovels was used, it must have been a big and labour-intensive undertaking. It would have required significant finance and it is probably no coincidence that the development coincided with rising profits from the perfume business during the introduction of steam distillation - capital creation must have been rapid at the time.

Avenue Thiers was completed in the mid-1860s and created access to the hitherto entirely rural quarter of Malbosc and further on to the hamlet of Magagnosc and the hillside village of Chateauneuf via what became Avenue Victoria. The new eastern quarter eventually proved especially attractive to an influx of wealthy ‘English’ (in reality, foreigners of various nations) seekers of winter residences in Grasse, which was considered a healthy refuge from the rigours of northern Europe winters.

But I find avenue Thiers itself, and especially the first few metres of what became avenue Victoria (which seem to have been occupied by the Grassois rather than by foreigners) just as interesting as the 'English' quarter further on. Here’s what avenue Thiers looks like today, compared to a view in, I guess, the 1920s.

There are still one or two nice buildings along it, especially if you look up and ignore the rather disfiguring shop fronts. Number 31 (on the left below) has this wooden window, balcony and impressive balustrades, while some thought has gone into the symmetrical facade of number 15 (on the right):

At the end of the avenue, there’s an illustration of the difficulty of building on the Riou Blanquet valley. This rather unsafe looking and certainly ugly stump is what is left today of a magnificent mansion, most of which had to be demolished twenty years ago before it fell down the valley. One wonders why the rest was just left to deteriorate.

Further on, here is another view in 1926 compared to the same one today, showing the avenue Victoria end of the new road, with the Grand Hotel (now the Grand Palais) just out of the picture to the right.

There has been a great deal of infilling since then, but three of the original buildings still stand out today. The villa in the centre of the picture is the Bastide d’Andon (number 4 avenue Victoria) which is a substantial enlargement and remodelling in 1888 of an existing building for the aristocratic Fanton d’Andon family. Their town house is in rue Gazan, near to the cathedral. To the left of it with the red roofs is Villa Thérese (number 2), about which I have been able to find little, although it and the demolished mansion on avenue Thiers proper looked remarkably similar. A little above and to the right of Bastide d’Andon on the right is a smaller villa (number 3), which has a stone plaque at its entrance which says Chant’Edith; is it related to Edith Piaf, who died at her house in Plascassier in 1963?

(Clockwise from top right) Bastide d'Andon; demolished villa on av. Thiers; Villa Thérese; 'Chant'Edith'

Number 1 avenue Victoria is out of sight on the left of the picture, but it’s another classic house of its time, but one which looks rather neglected: it's had an ugly extension added to the left and been broken down into a number of apartments. The grand entrance in the picture here is no longer in use:

The 'English' quarter, and particularly the old Grand Hotel and Alice de Rothschild's grand gardens tend to get all the focus, but avenue Thiers and the immediate part of avenue Victoria are also worth a good look.