Forging mills of Dampierre on Blevy

These forging mills are located at Dampierre-on-Blévy which the chief place is Maillebois (Eure-et-Loir)

These forging mills constitute an exceptional vestige of the iron and steel industry of XVIIe where the royal naval guns by order of Colbert were molten. The house of the Master of the forging mills, a double Blast furnace, markets and houses working remain on a site classified historic building.

The forging mills of Dampierre-on-Blévy settle about 1669 near the forest of Senonches which offers a formidable raw material tank. It is the first integrated factory of France. It concentrates in the same place two blast furnaces joined with octagonal chimneys. In addition to, the fuel, wood and ore, the factory uses the driving force of the water, produced by a pond of 17 ha on the Blaise. Here, Colbert made run the guns of the royal fleet and the 52 kilometers of underground drains of the aqueduct of Louis XIV. Today, remain the house of the Master of the forging mills, a double furnace, the markets with coal and the market of casting, the pond, the buildings with bellows and the housing of the clerk.

Description

It was about what one called a large forging mill, with the three production units:

Two blast furnaces in the same mass where long pig iron and cast iron bars were run, called pig moulds.
the Forging mill (metallurgy) itself, with a finery and a large hammer, called trip hammer; the cast iron was transformed into iron.
the Foundry where the iron bars were cut out before their marketing.

Several large wheels, actuated by the hydraulic force made drive the bellows of the blast furnaces, the large hammer of the forging mills and the mechanisms of the foundry.

An originality of the forging mills of Dampierre-on-Blévy, was the construction of two twin blast furnaces in the same building allowing the casting of large parts; the cast iron of guns is not foreign at this disposal. It also allowed, in 1688 the clothes industry of cast iron pipes 48 cm in diameter and 1 m length intended for the Canal of the Eure, pipes which were brought back in 1705 to be remelted after the abandonment of work.

But of other productions attest versatility of the establishment since beside iron small canes used in particular in the nail factory, the forging mills of Dampierre delivered also balls of gun to Rouen, to the Havre or Saint Malo.

Such a realization supposed financial means the very important ones. It was made possible by the Duc of Enghien which had gone purchaser, in 1667, of the forest of Senonches (as well as part of that of Brezolles) and which, eager to make profitable its forest, wished to increase the outlets by them. It provided him wood necessary, at the same time as the ore of the many mines or deposits worked there of unmemorable times.

A plan of 1834 makes it possible to see how were laid out behind the roadway of the large pond:

blast furnaces,
the forging mill,
the splitting mill,
the market with charcoal,
various workshops,
dwelling houses of the personnel,

And, not appearing, the rolling mill and the feuillardery which were located behind the bridge of the current road.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the industrial site was transformed into property of approval around the house of the ironmaster.

The various workshops and buildings were demolished, except the market with coal, as well as the blast furnaces. The seniority of those is to be underlined, the more so as the existence in France of other blast furnaces of X17e century in a state of similar conservation is not certain.

History

The history of the forging mills of Dampierre on Blévy cannot be dissociated from that of the metallurgy Norman which was, during centuries, one of most important of the kingdom.

There is not habit to associate countryside Norman and iron and steel activity; the production of iron however was there, until our days, a rural activity of most consequent. It is true that the natural landscape offered, there, a conjunction of rare possibilities since the metallurgical production was bound, at the time, with three crucial factors: the presence of layers of Ores, the abundance of wooded areas, for the clothes industry of the Charcoal feeding bottoms and blast furnaces, and finally the existence of the only driving force then usable; the hydraulic force.

One raises besides, until the 16th century the existence of production centres or transformation of iron close to Dampierre on Blévy: Boisard (close to Pongouin), Moulicent, Belohomert, Meaucé and Bellou. It is a metallurgical axis which borders the Eure and its affluents. On this line also the installation, already old was, of Ballu Wood and the furnace of the Ferme of the Mills. But these establishments were going to disappear in space from the few decades, little before the year 1550 for known male reasons, giving place to the establishment of an establishment then of most modern: forging mills of Dampierre on Blévy.

It is at that time, which from Germany and from Belgium, a new technique known as appeared of the indirect process and which was born the idea to gather the whole of the activities, splitting mill, wire-drawing mill, hitherto dispersed with the current. The idea being to create a vast water reserve by the construction of a dam to the foot of which was established the various workshops each one supplied with its clean “dispach rider”.

The existence of forging mills with Dampierre on Blévy is attested at the 15th century. One finds in the departmental records with Chartres “the purchase in 1487 of half of a furnace with iron under the roadway of the pond of Dampierre”, by François Courseuilles, marquis de Rouveray who had already other half.

This family of Courseuilles, of origin Norman, whose several member were buried at the 17th century in the church of Dampierre yielded the forging mills in 1669. The purchaser was Henri Jules de Bourbon, Duc of Enghien, wire of the Grand Cop.

The financial power of the Cop facilitates the development of the forging mills. The Duke of Enghien, become Prince de Condé in 1686, succeeded like owners of the forging mills of Dampierre, his/her daughter, the princess of Conti, her little girl, the princess of the Rock on Yon and finally its back small son Louis François of Bourbon-Conti.

Conti yielded in 1770 its goods located to Senonches and the forging mills of Dampierre to Louis XV which gave them in 1771 to the one of its small sons, the Count de Provence, future Louis XVIII, which carried since the title of Count de Senonches.

The forging mills were then rented with a Master of the forging mills of Randonnais (Ornes), Mr Goupil, whose descendant is always owner of the site.

With the revolution, the fields of the Count de Provence were sold like quite national; Mr Goupil and his associate Mr Canuel acquire the forging mills of Dampierre of which they were tenants, on October 13rd, 1791 during an adjudication made with the district of Châteauneuf-in-Thymerais.

Goupil will exploit only the forging mills in 1825, then join the company Guillain Frères. In 1862, Goupil withdraw and rent the factory at the company Guillain Frères which will cease the exploitation definitively a few years later.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the difficulties born of the supply wooden had led Goupil to close the blast furnaces and to bring back the annual annual production of iron to 150 or 200 tons instead of the 1000 to 1200 tons produced to the 18th century.

Manufacture consisted for half of tools with edge, in particular for agriculture and other half out of split irons and strip iron.

The majority of the personnel worked in forest: loggers, coalman, conveyers (carrying). The number of the workmen affected on the site of the forging mills did not reach even any more about thirty in 1834.

According to documents of Sirs Vitte and Boisanger .

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