Prochain point : lat="49.065018" lon="1.719929"
Stone Mill
One of the many corkscrew factories in Vexin
A flour mill converted...
The Stone Mill, formerly owned by the lords of Villers, was originally powered by Vienne brook, which was channeled, and Vaulézard brook. It was initially used to produce flour. You can still see the remains of the old aqueduct, built in wood before it was constructed in metal. At the time, it carried water to the mill over the road; the water intake point was a stone with 20 cm diameter hole in it. It was the height of the waterfall, more than the flow rate that produced the energy required to operate the mill.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the mill was converted into a corkscrew factory, run by a quick succession of factory owners. Among them, Burel was the biggest manufacturer at the time in France, but their main workshops were in Haute-Marne.
... into a corkscrew factory
One of the factory workers, Mathias Stiel, took over in 1883. He sold his business in 1890 to Hurel, who passed it on to his son Jean-Pierre Raoul Baradat. He was the only one who stayed at the stone mill for any length of time, manufacturing corkscrews from 1897 to 1929. He installed a turbine to boost the low yield of the factory. This type of corkscrew manufacturing was found in several mills in the region at the time. Competing manufacturers Trébutien and then Pecquet were also present in Vienne for twenty years.
