One thing leads to another

What is the link between a baptismal font, moved from an ancient romanesque chapel, attached to a farm along the Voie Verte, and a number of gypsum kilns roughly 30 km to the east of the chapel?
The link may be a bit farfetched, bet there certainly is one! After someone of the “Association des amis du vieux Berzé (AVB)" had approached us (see the previous blog), it seemed logical to have a good snoop around their website. Under “Partenaires” I found a link towards a site specialised in cataloguing romanesque churches in Burgundy, “Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne". And since I am also slightly interested in this subject, I decided to have a look at this site, and especially at the “Saône-et-Loire” page.

After having pressed “Page down” twice I had a number of pictures of romanesque churches with place names in alphabetical order on my screen, on which Chazelle seemed to be missing. When one clicked on a picture, a page opened with a description of the church, a number of pictures, and sometimes with even more additional information, all in French. After having clicked on the “Contact” page I found out that the site was created by a Dutchman, Eduard van Boxtel, and of course an e-mail was quickly concocted telling him that there was no description of Chazelle on his site. Well, was I wrong!
I received a very friendly answer, with a link to the place where Chazelle was mentioned, even though there were not yet pictures available. My built-in impatience was partially to blame for this. Had I pressed the “Page down” button a few times more, I would have ended up in a number of lists of towns and villages, each hosting one or more romanesque churches, ordered by importance ranging from six stars to one star. And indeed, Chazelle was mentioned there as well. After some correspondence with the webmaster I decided to help him with his collection of photos by giving him a few pictures of the churches he had nothing of.

Whilst browsing through my pictures of romanesque churches I stumbled upon Collonges, a village signposted as “Chapelle romane” along the road from Cluny to Cormatin. This chapel hosts a romanesque baptismal font, which belonged originally to another chapel in Cotte, and was transferred to Colonges where it is used as a holy water font. And although the chapel in Collonges is not romanesque at all, Eduard found the story interesting, even more when I presented him with a photograph of this holy grail.
Since then we are regularly in touch about photographs and details, and I could even bring an unsightly small romanesque chapel in Cormatin to his attention, of which he had even never heard.
An so one thing leads to another. For those interested in romanesque architecture Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne offers a wealth of information on the subject. And those with a bit more patience than I can muster can find much more on this site: information about romanesque architecture in general, a glossary of French terms, architecture of Rome, Byzantine art, and possibly more, if one has the patience to look for it....

For our own website click here.

A journey to the centre of the earth

As a follow-up to a previous blog we decided to phone up M. Piffaut of the “Association des amis du vieux Berzé (AVB)” to make an appointment to see the gypsum kilns in Berzé-la-Ville.
M. Piffaut was very enthusiastic about the whole idea, and we made an appointment to meet him on a Wednesday at 10 o’clock at the Chapelle des Moines in Berzé-la-Ville. When we arrived, there was a heavy delegation awaiting us. The mayor of Berzé was there (by accident, we learnt later), M. Piffaut and two more active members of the AVB. M. Piffaut and his friends gave us a very interesting tour along the two different types of kilns which had been in use there.
A very concise run-down on what we were told: gypsum, a soft sedimentary rock was mined in the nearby gypsum mine. Depending on the type of oven used, the gypsum was deposited in an oven and heated (with wood) to ca. 180 degrees, whilst in a slightly more modern type of oven the gypsum was deposited in layers, with in between layers of coal. The bottom fire burnt the above layer of gypsum, and when ready the bottom layer of gypsum was taken out.

When the gypsum was ready it was taken out of the kiln, the whole concoction above fell down one layer, the coal were lit and the kiln was refilled from the top. That way a continuous process was created. The gypsum was then transported to a nearby mill, where the gypsum was milled into powder with horse power. The final product was bagged and sold off as building material.
After the kilns we were invited to see one of the mine shafts which was still intact. The shafts are quite dangerous, and are normally closed to the public. The mine shafts had been used (even before the closure of the mines around 1900, but also after) for growing mushrooms. However the “mushroom” farms were closed down after a fatal accident due to one of the shafts caving in. These mineshafts were not very deep, and only slightly sloping, but still, it was a special experience to move around under the surface of the earth.
M. Piffaut and friends did everything within their power to explain as good as possible what had been the purpose of the various features of the site.

They obviously had done a lot of research, but also a lot of heavy manual labour. The kilns were all filled up with rubble and soil, partially underground, and a number of the members of the commune has spent every Friday during the summer since ca. 1995 to clear the site of rubble and to dig out and empty the kilns, all done with spades and wheelbarrows. One oven was still filled with coal and gypsum, as if a local volcano had disturbed the workflow.
We look back to a very pleasant morning with our new found friends. M. Piffaut warned us, when we said goodbye to them, that we could expect a delegation of about five AVB members for a counter visit who are interested in the workings of a brick factory.

Needless to say, that they are more than welcome!






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Does anyone read your blog?

It is a question I have asked myself many a time. And every so often I meet someone who knows things which can only be known by those who have read my blog.
Yesterday a Frenchman stopped at our gate, who explained that he had found an old blog of mine about tuileries in Burgundy (from 2009) via the internet. Of course we asked him to come in, offered him a chair and away he fired.
He happened to be a member of the " Association des amis du vieux Berzé ", a village about 25 km from here. The association occupies it self with restoring and maintaining some old gypsum furnaces over there. Whilst cleaning up they had found some old bricks with the stamp of "our" factory engraved in them. After having found the bricks they searched the internet for a Tuilerie of Noël Marembaud in Chazelles, Cormatin, and that is how they found my little history. He had worked in England for a while, hence he could read my blog without much trouble.
He had found the story interesting enough to pop by and have a snoop around. We offered him the grand tour, which he happily accepted. During the tour we found out that he had read the blog thoroughly; the blog said clearly that we never had been able to find proof that our tuilerie had actually produced roof tiles. And that was very true when I wrote it. However, two weeks ago we received two roof tiles, with inscription, from the mayor of Cormatin, who in turn had received a number of tiles from the former country constable. The latter had found the tiles somewhere while cleaning out a shed in Cormatin, and gave them to the mayor.

Our new friend made the remark that it was rather strange that they had never produced tiles in our factory, and we could put that straight there and then! After the tour he said goodbye and invited us over to the gypsum furnaces of Berzé-la-Ville to return the favour. And we certainly will!

For our own website click here.