Bagas fortified mill
The military mill Bagas is an undershot water mill made of stone by the river Dropt in Bagas in the French department of Gironde . It probably dates from 1316 and has three horizontal millstones. At that time it was owned by the Albret family . The mill is since 7 January 1926 monument . Production was then stopped, but the mill is still operational today.
history
As a result of the Hundred Years War , the mill, like the Moulin de Loubens a few kilometers upstream, fell to England in 1436. In a letter from the time, the mill was attested to be 120 years old. At the end of the fifteenth century, the mill passed into the hands of the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Pierre de La Réole . In 1578 the Albret family, who had since become landowners again, sold the building to François Gautier , whose family kept it until the French Revolution . In the 19th century, oil was pressed in the mill.
Building
The rectangular building, standing across the river, 12 meters by 15 meters with loopholes on all sides, has a wall thickness of almost two meters and was originally completely surrounded by water. Only a narrow wooden walkway allowed access to the first floor. On the upper floor, small, formerly hexagonal turrets were also attached to the four corners of the building, which further improved the defense options. Today only one turret has its original shape, while the other three were converted into round turrets. Similar systems existed within the Bordelais only in Cleyrac and in Piis .
It was probably not until 1886, after the Desc family bought the mill, that there were three storeys. This arrangement enables more ergonomic production: wheat was hoisted into the roof with a pulley system and stored there. On the lowest level, the grain was ground using the drive wheels. Four pairs of wheels, each coupled with a horizontal wheel, could grind wheat and corn at the same time. The flour produced was then transported to the first floor by a bucket elevator and cleaned in two large flour sieves. The finished flour could then be bagged on the ground floor and returned to the traders.
In 1841 a lock was built north of the mill in order to be able to better supply the hinterland with economic goods through continuous shipping. Just twenty years later, shipping was stopped again because of the emerging railway. The lock can be reached via an iron bridge, but is no longer navigable.
Tourism
The mill can currently only be visited on special occasions.
Individual evidence
Web links
- Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc: Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle, Volume 6, Verlag B. Bance 1858 , p. 407
- Parimoine et inventaire d'Aquitaine (French) ( Memento of July 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
Coordinates: 44 ° 37 '38 " N , 0 ° 3' 28" W.