Lime kilns of Rey - Maritime Museum of Regnéville

the lime kilns of Rey were built at the beginning of the Second Empire to produce the Chaux intended for the Amendement of the arable lands of the Armorican West. The site lodges today the maritime Musée of Regnéville-on-sea devoted to the maritime and industrial history of this coastal village of the west of the Département of the English Channel.

Stopover between the Guyenne (the Gascogne) and the ports English, Regnéville-on-Sea was formerly one of the most active ports of the Cotentin, thanks to the large medieval fairs of Agon and Montmartin. At the 18th century, the ship-owners of the Harbor and Honfleur make there arm their ships for great fishing on the benches with Newfoundland. At the 19th century, the production of Chaux used in agriculture will make perdurer this vocation maritime: here forward the coal coming from Wales and the stone with lime exported towards the northern coast of Brittany, deprived of resources limestones.

Lime kilns of Rey

Profiting from the presence of a carboniferous calcareous layer, the country of Montmartin has as of the 16th century of many lime kilns. Built between 1852 and 1854 in the fields of the engineer Pierre Simonneau, the 4 large lime kilns are built resting against the old coal face of the Carrière of limestone of Rey. The port of stranding of Regnéville then sees developing its traffic: Goélette S discharge coal coming from Wales, other boats embark local limestone towards the Anglo-Norman islands and the Breton coast. It is a question of providing out of lime Amendement these countries of the Armorican west to the acid grounds. The lime kilns will remain in activity only one about thirty years: the Chaulage of the grounds is less and less practiced and the production of lime will be abandoned towards the end of the year 1880.

Today restored, the Lime kilns of Rey are the property of the General advice of the English Channel which ensures of it the conservation, management and animation within the framework of the departmental Réseau of the sites and museums of the English Channel.

The maritime Museum

The maritime museum evokes the maritime and industrial history of Regnéville-on-Sea.

Through models and reconstitutions, the museum evokes the various techniques of production and use of lime since the Antiquité.

The museum also testifies to the maritime past of the village. As of the the Middle Ages, the trade is dense there thanks to the medieval fair founded by Jean-without-Ground. Objects, work of sailors, tools and works of art evoke navigation and the life on board. This daily life of the sailors, it is also that of those which exert the “trades of the littoral”: greor, Caulker, sailing ship or Rope-maker. The last rope manufacture of Regnéville, closed in 1925, is reconstituted on the spot and opened with the visit. The museum grants obviously a broad place to the Cabotage, since this form of navigation was particularly of use here. One presents to it the types of boats which attended the port of Regnéville at the end of the 19th century, the limits of the demarcation and the coastal traffic, the rules in force for this type of navigation. Tables, models, wreck, veils old make it possible to evoke this activity.

A film on the history of the medieval Castle of Regnéville, drawn up there to protect a very active commercial port, makes it possible to establish the link between the two topics.

Source: Direction of the sites and museums - General advice of the English Channel

External bonds

Sites and museums of the English Channel

Random links: