Private tracks
A kilometre of unmade track is normal here. We check surface, gradient, overhanging branches and turning space at the far end, because a vehicle that gets in and cannot turn is a far worse problem than one that never committed.
Gers (32) · Landes (40) · Hautes-Pyrénées (65) · Tarn-et-Garonne (82)
Gascony and the Gers
The empty quarter. Farmhouses at the end of a kilometre of private track, bastide towns laid out on a grid in the thirteenth century, and very little between them.
The property, and what it does to a move
Gascony is the most isolated of the British property belts and isolation is the whole job. A Gers farmhouse is frequently the only building in sight, reached by a private track off a departmental road, with no mains drainage, no street lighting and no neighbour to take a key. Everything a removal normally borrows from its surroundings — a hard shoulder to park on, a shop for lunch, a signal to phone ahead — has to be brought with the crew.
The houses themselves are generally kinder than the Dordogne. Gascon farmhouses tend to be broad rather than tall, with wider openings, larger rooms and ground-floor living, because they were built for families who worked the land rather than for defence. Where they get difficult is the roof space: attics converted into bedrooms with a trap-and-ladder rather than a proper stair.
Bastide towns — Fleurance, Mirande, Marciac and the rest — are the opposite problem. Laid out on a strict grid around an arcaded square, they have narrow burgage plots, houses two rooms wide, and covered arcades with pillars that stop a vehicle getting within twenty metres of a front door. The grid looks generous on a map and is not.
Access
Getting a vehicle to the door in the Gascony & the Gers
The approach decides more of the day than the contents do. These are the three that recur here.
No services on site
Crews arrive self-sufficient for isolated properties — water, food, fuel and a plan for a dead phone signal. It sounds trivial until the nearest shop is half an hour away.
Arcaded bastide squares
Covered arcades keep vehicles away from the door and their pillars are protected. We plan the carry distance and, where the commune requires it, arrange the barrier permit rather than chancing it.
Out to France
Removals from the UK to the Gascony & the Gers
People move to the Gers on purpose, for the space and the quiet, and they tend to bring everything. Outbound loads here are among our largest — full households, workshop contents, sometimes livestock equipment and garden machinery that has to be cleaned and declared properly rather than thrown in the back.
Collecting from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol and across the UK — removals from London to the Gascony & the Gers, and from every other postcode besides.
Moving to FranceBack to Britain
Removals from the Gascony & the Gers to the UK
The return leg is usually driven by distance rather than disenchantment: the nearest hospital is an hour off and that starts to matter. Emptying an isolated farmhouse takes planning because there is nowhere to stage overflow — no lock-up down the road, no friendly neighbour with a spare barn. The inventory has to be right first time.
Delivering to a UK address, into store, or split across both while a purchase completes.
The return legElsewhere in France
The other four belts
Moving to or from the Gascony & the Gers?
Tell us the commune, the kind of building and which direction you are going. We will come back with what we need to see.