Today this cultural inheritance protected (registered historic building since 1987 on joint proposal of Ecomusée and the commune of Montjean) been the object from a project of museographic valorization.
Châteaupanne in the " territory park " of the industrial and river inheritance montjeannais.
The characteristic of Montjean is to offer according to the walkers, an unequalled pallet at this point in Anjou, quays and holds with the imposing landscapes, towers, walls, arches, whose stones and the moyenâgeux profiles often hidden under ivy allure and disconcert by their aspect insolite.Ni castles strong nor aqueducts, it acts of castles of industry, monumental heritage of the " time of mariniers ".
Vingt-trois insane with lime (and vestige) including five furnaces of the 18th centuries, thirteen meters top cyclops, with the loud-voiced people fixing the sky, mark out the edges of the Loire, since the furnace of the shore with Montjean until châteaupanne as well as the countryside and the vineyard of the orchère, with small rabbit while passing by Pincourt. (see the card).
With the geological richness of the calcium carbonate limestone, primary limestone of coral origin was added that of the " pit coal " making it possible to calcine it in the " Fourneau'.
The arch joined with the carboniferous wall of the slope of Montjean is the monument of coal mining, the head-frame out of stone of the well of Distinct (1874-1875), which represents with the lime-burning of Pincourt (registered since 1986 with the inventory additional of the Historic buildings), the industrial inheritance of Montjean and Anjou registered with the " signal fifty " of the selections of the Ministry for the culture (special number of collection image of the inheritance " industrial inheritance, fifty sites in France " direction of the inheritance, 1997.
Montjean counted then 3500 inhabitants (1880), was the home port of a fleet of 80 boats of the Loire joined per as many other boats coming from the Low-Loire and which carried 40 000 tons of lime per annum until in Finistère.
See the booklet of the écomusée:"Parcours village, port, mines and lime kilns ".
The geological base of the industrial inheritance.
The landscape of Montjean and its accesses expresses the diversity of its geological territory;
In North it is the alluvial valley, reads major protected by the liftings, islands submarines and arm of the Loire of the minor bed, medium of river archaeology. In the South, the slope of the woodlands and vine grower of the plate of Mauges, slice the Precambrian schist mass of Briovérien topographically dominating the complex siluro-dévonien which carries the road Mesnil-Montjean-Chalonnes.
In edge of the Loire, a line of hills dominate the river.
Châteaupanne in the east, with encrusted an enormous primary limestone lens: Dévonien stages emsien givétien, an excellent limestone calcium carbonate.
The slope of Montjean carrying the neogothic church of the marine and industrial prosperity prolonged of " Garenne " to the west, hills of schists and sandstone of which " square stone " of the carboniferous Namurien stage, entrelardées of veins of coals and openings of mining work.
Culm franco-dinantien, schists and sandstone make the connection between this field and the preceding unit;
Calcium carbonate limestone, the limestone of the coral reefs of Dévonien.
The calcium carbonate limestone is presented to Montjean in solid masses seems T-it insulated, chain of lenses shelled since Pincourt, the Small Rabbit, the filled careers of Hare, of Lion, until the great career of Châteaupanne in the east. A geological continuity, mineralogical bridges, or network of faults undoubtedly connect them like showed it the draining of the old water jusqu careers a long time ' with the deepening of the career of châteaupanne.
A device which is repeated with chalonnes and throughout carboniferous furrow. Each layer locates furnaces.
This limestone gray-blue traversed of last blanchâtres is coralligenous. It is initially the heritage of coral colonies, billion skeletons of tétracoralliens, ancestors of the current corals and tabulés stromatopores.
bryozoaires, with locally presence of récifaux brachiopods.
It is also organogenic, rich will amphipora some, sea urchins and brachiopods, a fauna associated with the corals, with also of the stratified structures. It moreover consists of small (accretions of limestone around quartz cores) and of phtamites (old consolidated siliceous muds).
A whole récifal medium of there are 360 to 370 million years, when this element of a geological puzzle which will constitute Anjou worked, atoll or coral barrier, with the tropical latitudes of the hot seas of the southern hemisphere. Rocks oranges of clays of karstic dissolution modelled are observable at the top of quarry face. In northern edge of the reef, concerned with the formation of the horst of the Leclerc tomb appear schists and sandstone with psilophytes, first vascular plants.
The case of the site of lime-burning of Small Rabbit, exploitation Octave to dry.
Furnaces of Small Rabbit and the lark (about 1840) to the refractory micaceous chalk dresses. They are in opposite one of the other with in the interval the pylons of tuffeau which carried the railway, supplying them out of calcium carbonate limestone. In the south, office, residences and stables and in the garden perhaps the former circular dynamitière and with cupola.
The career which presented to the bottom alignments last stones limestones output, is in the course of filling by a dump of inert waste. It would be desirable that filling is stopped before the end to leave in obviousness the overhang of the faces and especially not to mask the remarkable discordance of the layer of limestone of the shelly sands (25 million years) on primary limestone
Lime kilns of Châteaupanne.
It is a medieval fortress which one grows to see drawing up itself in the notch of a small valley and at the bottom of the slope, once crossed the arm of the island of Guesse. In fact this " burg " of the edges of the Loire is " Castles " of industry, together of four large lime kilns of 18th and 19th centuries, exceptional by its monumentality. It was a high place of technological innovation to the ' centuries of the lumières' with if not discovery, at least the early application to the semi 18th century, of art to cook the calcium carbonate limestone with the pit coal.".
Châteaupanne the most significant complex of lime kilns of the Loire.
Châteaupanne it was before 1914 five furnaces of great capacity, employing 70 workmen including 25 carriers, producing approximately 30 000 tons of quicklime, (up to 40 000 tons for the years 1869 to 1875) and 7000 tons of lime ash per annum. The unquestionable dating of 1666 of the embankments of lime ash, vis-a-vis with the furnace of the white House " attests the seniority of the site exploited as of the 17th century.
Evolution of the site.
Two furnaces ' jalousie' and ' clermont' in the east and a furnace in the west the white House represent an exceptional heritage from mid the 18 2nd century. Leaned with the slope they are of type ' Furnaces in falaise' They were joined in 1848 by ' the union " or ' république"puis " Holy Hubert " of the type " Furnaces in tourelles"détachés of the solid mass and bearing link.
They are in edge of an arm of the Loire channeled, equipped with holds of unloading. Couple barges where in file awaited their tower there to charge lime. They were more than 200 each year to come to embark with châteaupanne 25000 tons of lime for Nantes and Brittany.
A lime-burning bicentenary.
Lime-burning had been for the 18 2nd century the property of the Clémenceau family of the Moor shared with D ' different then exclusive towards prosperous 1860.l' establishment, very favoured by the river market La company makes before 1914 the object of a new issue of capital, associating them with the popular saving Montjeannaise, of which that of Mariniers.
In 1916 JJ Carnnaud the Nantes coonservor repurchases the whole for its metallurgical needs and perhaps in the hope of the development of the iron and steel industry in the Low Loire.
It is only at the end of the First World War that George Lirot direct of the new owner modernizes them. With the place of St shaved Hubert, a large bolter is built, crushing lime in rock and extinguishing it slightly to stabilize it, bagging it, providing a lime slightly extinct and bolted for the refining of the iron of limped of preserve produced by JJ Carnaud. The punt just like forms furnaces the whole exploitation since the career, is served by a railroad which leads to the quay, rebuilds right and equipped with a charging hopper. It succeeded holds feeding trough adapted to all levels of the river which made it possible to roll to the boat the " cottret ", brouetté of one half-hectolitre filled of lime " in rock " (see the two stereotypes).
While climbing of the foreman who also leads to his house, one reaches the loading platform of the furnaces where ' Bijou' the donkey trailed six tip trucks filled with hardcores of large career like the head of a homme".Au - beyond road and railroad of access to the career
it was the stable and " the forging mill " where one sharpened tools and jumper bars.
The tool, the furnace and manufacture.
The landscape in the " furnace of the Union ", makes it possible to admire of them the tank of sleeps ovoid of 5.60 meters in its largeer diameter. A spectacular volume of 170 cubic meters some 10 meters height capacity and to the top of the pivot, directed on the sky.
The calcium carbonate limestone was calcined there at a temperature of 1000°tolerated by refractory the stone dress provided by a career of very siliceous rock of St Pierre of the Path in the Vendée (it resists more 18OO°).Un ring of dilation out of clay makes the transition with the powerful preparing external of the installed stone furnace.
One charged by the " loud-voiced person " top a layer of stones, a coal seam at a rate of 200 kilogrammes for a ton of calcium carbonate limestone. After the firing of the first load, on a grinding stone of logs of vine shoots of vine crowned by a first coal and first layer seam of stone, one continued with confourner uninterrupted. After passage in the median zone of cooking, that of the largeest diameter, the stone become essentially oxide of calcium pulverulent and lighter of half (departure of carbon dioxide cooled while descending Puis, by the mouth of the furnaces at the bottom of the three ébraisoirs opening at the base of each furnace, this quicklime in rock was discharged with arm by the fourneliers magnant the hook.
Its furnaces with continuous cooking with short flame stopped only a few weeks in a few months per annum, according to the market.
The reduction in mass of limestone after departure of the carbon dioxide being of almost Ö% they is 60 000 tons of calcium carbonate limestone which had to be charged to supply the five furnaces of châteaupanne.
The " rate " of 250 (coal 250kg for stone 1000kg) for a cumulated production montjeannaise which reached jusqu ' with 50 000 tons of lime per annum implied the consumption of the 3/4 of the local coal (of other uses), supplemented by that of Chalonnes very close or remote of Wales going up by Nantes.
The successive plans of mass show the reinforcements brought to the furnaces which worked makes exceptional for industrial tools more than two hundred years until in 1962.Les physical efforts and thermics to which they were subjected returned necessary doublings and external buttresses.
Uses of lime.
Metallurgical refining it is the need for last exploiting company JJ Carnaud (de1916 at 1962) using lime or limestone (limestone stones) in metallurgy in Low-indre downstream from Nantes for the dephosphorization and the deacidification of iron with cans.
Agriculture is it principal outlet. The quicklime is the calcareous amendment of the acid grounds of the West in Brittany in particular, the navy supplying the farmers by the Channel from Nantes in Brest bolted lime, bagged, épandable by seeders or spreaders replaces " lime in rock " in the years 1920.
The remainder went to the building La hydrated lime obtained by extinction by water contribution which releases a sharp heat is mixed with sand to provide the mortar of the former masons. Other very varied uses are the tanneries food industry, the paper mill, the cleansing.
The course of interpretation of the calcareous site gives all its dimensions to the subject.
Office of carriers of the " Small Furnace " to the old career of Renaud, very beautiful elliptic career dug in the calcareous mass, it is the reality of the hard work of the carriers. It is as the contact with the matter, the limestone calcium carbonate, limestone dévonien with its coral fossils and its limpid calcite seams at the same time as the glance on the calcicole flora protected from the orchises. Under the embankments of lime ash and the vegetation, the vestiges hidden of an old furnace perhaps of the 17 2nd century.
Orchises of châteaupanne, a calcicole flora.
On the southern slope in the past in vine and also on the soles of extraction of the old careers, on the embankments of lime ash developed a calcicole flora of tropical affinity, whose indicator high-speed motorboat is the orchis, represented in May April by many varieties. An inheritance floristic fragile, natural and anthropic very related to the state of the biotope, to also protect from the normal shrubby evolution of the vegetation tending to the pubescent oak and which would occult it.
With far, one sees isolated in his vineyard, the great property of the Master-lime-burner owner of the places. Downwards the village of Châteaupanne, that of the country fourneliers of formerly with his priory and its Romance church, its school of the 18th century and its bar of the years 1930, where still resound the working clamours.
The career of châteaupanne 1666-1962/1998.
Calcium carbonate limestone, a limestone dévonien stages emsien-eifelien (360à370 million years récifal and coralligenous (see geology) which takes the aspect of the marble when it is polished.
Exploited as of 1666 (and undoubtedly as of the Middle Ages) until July 1862 it is an excellent calcium carbonate limestone with the good content carbonate of calcium allowing its calcination in the furnaces.
84,44% of CACO3+8,72% of CAD libre.et silica
Alumina, oxide iron, magnésium(laboratoire Carnaud-1950)
Since, it is exploited by the CTC(Carrières company and work of Châteaupanne of the group Cochery bourdin and chaussée)pour the embankments lorry driver, motorway the aggregates, at a rate of 400 000tonnes/an with sinking of the floor of extraction to 126 meters under topographic surface.
In southern edge the recent factory of carbonates of châteaupanne astonishing rebirth on technological bases different from the old industry producing without calcination and by fine crushing approximately 40 000 tons of agricultural amendments limestones.
The old topography of the career with its shelters of carriers has for a long time disappeared, " mangée"par the current one, like for a few years its plan inclined, the building of the winding engine, the transformer, the departure of the tunnel of access to the furnaces whose exit exists however as the tunnel which served the furnace of the white House.
The teams and the workshops (forging mill), are still debouts with semi-slope of the slope, the level of the tunnel and the platform of the furnaces, just as the house of the foreman, but in sorry state. One sees the trace of the railroad, whose harnessed tip trucks, conveyed the stone in large blocks " like the head of a man ", to the furnaces.
This territory property of company CTC is for its patrimonial part a pivot of the project ' Montjean, wearing of the Loire ".
To become of châteaupanne, museographic valorization.
The site, which ceased its activity in 1962 is still in good condition for the carcass work heavy castings of the furnaces. It was the subject of a ' building site of young people " of restoration within the framework of écomusée.
In the project " Montjean, wearing of the Loire " the lime kilns of châteaupanne are proposed there to constitute the future antenna of the inheritance lime-burner of écomusée of Montjean, the Loire angevine. The interpretative route of the site by the visitor is supplemented by the demonstration of the calcination of lime and by the exposure carried out in the forging mill to leave inter alia the information provided by George Albert, the former foreman.
The old stable accomodates the building site of restoration of the site registers Historic building.