Moulin dit à farine

English translation

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History

The flour mill is built in Bambecque (in the Nord) in 1776 according to the date inscribed on the lintel. It is the work of the carpenter Joan (Jean). Its patrons are the Le Ceuche family. It remains in this family until 1896, when it is sold to Jules Bacquet-Bayard, miller in Ruminghem in the Pas-de-Calais, who moves it to that locality to replace a flour mill that has burned down. It then changes hands several times. They modify it to modernize it, which gradually alters its character. In 1913 the mill is equipped with a steam engine (so as no longer to depend solely on the whims of the wind), which is subsequently dismantled. In the 1930s the mill is moved 200 metres and the pedestal, the bolting equipment and the sails are removed, and their remains are used to create an extension attached to the body, while a new electric motor is installed. Activity ceases in 1948, and the mill, whose millstones are sold in 1956, is transformed into a henhouse and rabbit warren. Its last owners before purchase by the ARAM (Association régionale des amis des moulins) used it as a garage and storage shed. The ARAM is an association devoted to the knowledge and rescue of mills, founded on 23 June 1973 by Jean Bruggeman, cabinet-maker by training and self-taught, animated by an unbounded passion for mills. He is the author of numerous works on mill science which are authoritative, notably studies by cantons and by arrondissements in Nord-Pas-de-Calais. To his role as popularizer he adds recognized technical expertise, the ARAM having restored throughout France some thirty windmills and a dozen watermills. The flour mill is the second mill to have joined the site of the ARAM mill museum, after the mill des olieux. Identified by the association as early as 1967, it is purchased by them in 1979, and restored from 1984 to 1988, restoring to it its original configuration. In 1997-1998, to make the milling more efficient, it is equipped with a half-dekker system (sheet metal covering part of the sail). It is one of the masterpieces of the mill museum in Villeneuve d'Ascq, representing there the most common use for mills (grinding flour), and illustrating the tradition of wooden windmills under Flemish influence, which brought wealth to the region but many examples of which have disappeared.