ID: Secanda 16.15 (2016-12-14)
Version: 2b Updated (2024-10-06)
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About...
Chef-du-Bois Mill is one of the finest examples of communal mill of the Ancien Régime remaining in Brittany. It depended on the lordship of Pen ar C'hoat (Breton word, translated as Chef-du-Bois in French, "Top of the Wood") and that until the French Revolution.
The main building probably dates from the late fifteenth or sixteenth century. What strikes first is the presence of two corner turrets, false and purely decorative bartizans because they are solid masonry. Originally there were four (one at each corner), as the rest of a base shows of the opposite side. We also note the cornices of fake dovecotes on the gables.
This architecture of noble kind, luxurious and ostentatious, is quite unusual for just a mill and it has been suggested therefore that originally this mill could be a small manor or a relay on Fouesnant-Concarneau road, which at this time passed in front of the mill. However, the building was already a mill in the late eighteenth century as evidenced by the dates borne by its spillways.
Technically, it is a mill with two independent vertical wheels. These are bucket wheels, therefore fed from the top. This system requires a strong slope but is water efficient, which explains the low volume of the impoundment in bypass of the river. This mill was in operation until 1968.
Chef-Du-Bois Mill is listed in the Monuments Historiques (Historical French Heritage) since 1939.
License: common law (copyright) | Author: Secanda
Free use for private purposes. Any commercial use is prohibited.
Categories: Watermills | Renaissance | Early modern period | France | France /Brittany |