A little turbine that could

A water-driven mill doesn’t necessarily operate with a wheel bearing buckets or blades. The little turbines that replaced them are just as powerful.

Over time, the interior of the mill has undergone many changes. A huge bucket wheel originally operated the milling machinery. The water that drove it came through a raised channel, as if flowing over a bridge. The machinery was on the ground floor and the millstones on the 2nd floor.

It was probably in 1907 that Télesphore Lebœuf and his son Dolphis replaced the bucket wheel with a much smaller cast-iron turbine, tucked away in the basement. Believe it or not, the same turbine still operates the mill today.

An expensive noisemakerIn the 1920s and 1930s, sand built up and dried out the water reservoir. The miller at the time, Donat Lebœuf, had to install a stationary engine to power the mill. It made a tremendous racket throughout the whole neighbourhood, and the high cost of fuel meant that there was very little profit left over for the poor miller.

Wooden pipe

The impressive wooden pipe when it was removed in the 1980s. It must have been a huge job for Alfred Michel when he installed it in the 1940s, without the help of heavy machinery.

Source: Société des amis du Moulin Michel

Grinding away the yearsMillstones last a very long time. We don’t know the exact age of those in the Moulin Michel, but it must be at least a century! Did you see the millstone outside, by the entrance? It was found buried here, near the river.

Old wooden pipe

Old wooden pipe from the 1940s, when it was removed in the 1980s.

Source: Société des amis du Moulin Michel