Sentiers du Patrimoine ®
Ennery
Revenir vers l’église Saint-Aubin et remonter la rue du Moutier. Emprunter à droite la rue Charpentier d’Ennery pour rejoindre le parking.
Prochain point : Lat. 49.0796, Long. 2.10818
As early as the 1830’s, Ennery owned a school building to instruct the school children of the town. School was not compulsory yet. You had to pay for the teaching and it was religious. After the school underwent several extensions and moves, the mayor and castle owner of Ennery, Louis Athanase Rendu, finally took the decision to erect a new municipal building in front of the château on a land he gave to the municipality. The ‘Mairie-école’ was drawn by the Pontoise architect Arnold and was inaugurated on November 13th 1845. This was quite early on for the area for such a building and thus makes it one of the oldest of the French Vexin. Therefore, when the Jules Ferry laws established free, mandatory and laic education in 1882, the town already had a suitable building to host it.
The ‘mairie-école’ would host the conseil municipal on the first floor, the teaching room and the appartement of the teacher on the ground floor. A room called ‘salle d’asile’ would also host the younger children at a time when kindergarten did not exist yet. Girls and boys had to receive separate teachings although there was only one classroom: until 1867 most girls were cared for by the teacher’s wife, until the law imposed the creation of a class specially for girls. The small belfry on top of the building used to house a bell which would announce the beginning of class. In 1965, the mairie-école became too small for the 70 students of the town. A new school was therefore built and the existing building was reconfigured to host only the councillors and representatives.
