33. Salle de la Pena

33. Salle de la Pena

33. Salle de la Pena

It is located at the end of a road called Chemin de l’Abattoir (Slaughterhouse Road). This is not surprising: it uses the site of the former municipal slaughterhouse, one of the town's very first public services, inaugurated in 1868, when the Gare district was beginning to expand.

The chosen location was deliberately situated outside inhabited areas, near the railway line, with a system for draining its wastewater into the slaughterhouse stream, which flows into the Bès River. It is a building with walls made of solid stone blocks, allowing the slaughterhouse to operate for many years.

Changes in health regulations related to animal slaughter and the pollution caused to the Bès River by wastewater discharges led to its closure. Abandoned for a time by the railway line, the old building has been rehabilitated to become an association hall, the Peña taurine de Morcenx, thus completing the range of meeting rooms that the municipality makes available to its many associations as well as to individuals to celebrate important family events.

Une Pena, kesako ?

A peña, or bullfighting club, in the Southwest of France designates the place where aficionados meet, those who appreciate the art of the Landes course and that of bullfighting, two ways of creating a spectacle that highlights the bravery of the teams, the quadrillas, formed to face either a cow, a coursière, or a bull.