“I’m going to set up an ideas box.
» Nicolas Samuelian, head of excavations at the national institute for preventive archaeological research (Inrap), still stumbles upon one of the last secrets that this archaeological site of Sartrouville (Yvelines) must reveal.
At the corner of rue Voltaire and rue Gabriel-Péri, where the construction of a school group of 19 nursery and elementary classes is to be launched within three weeks, Inrap has been in charge, since last November, of archaeological research of the old plot of a mill.
This construction site which immerses the visitor in the past is exceptionally open to the public this Saturday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Failing to unravel the mystery surrounding the usefulness of this small circular building initially envisaged as a proto mill by archaeologists, visitors will benefit from a visually and culturally enriching excavation site.
Favors of a site harkening back to a not so distant era.
And yet little known.
A 17th century mill rich in lessons
“It’s a story that was lost,” says Nicolas Samuelian.
But the plot like the street next door bears the name of the mills.
» The small house which until recently overlooked the site actually turned out to cover the carcass of a 17th century windmill.
The plans and registers of the time, like the later Napoleonic land register, confirm the existence of four mills in Sartrouville, including two others around the aptly named rue des Moulins.
The Tour mill, of which an autopsy is being carried out today, is the oldest of them.
It belonged to the Liebert family and produced flour until the mid-19th century.
The remains of the orchard and vineyards, belonging to the former millers, bear witness to the town's market gardening past.
“Before the Great War, Sartrouville had only 3,500 inhabitants: many were market gardeners who went to sell at the Paris market,” explains Patrick Poulailler, member of the “friends of the history of Sartrouville”, who manage the museum of history of the city.
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The very position of this site, located just on the outskirts of the old town, says a lot.
It takes us back to a time when the city center was further to the northeast.
It was only later that it “developed towards the station area after the arrival of the railway”, explains Patrick Poulailler.
The schools are still to come but the place is already informative.