1343 : Eudes IV of Burgondy, Duke of Burgondy, Count of Burgondy (Franche-Comté), Count of Artois and grandson of Saint-Louis ordered the creation of the Mill the benefit of the monks of the priory of Val Saint-Benoit created in 1240 in the forest visible from the terrace. The priory is still in existence and occupied by nuns.
1347 : Trial between the monks and the lords of Lodges who want to reserve the right to water.
XVI siècle : The widow of Gaspard of Epinac takes control of the millestones (one of them now serves as a base for the fireplace). Without millstone, the wind is no longer useful and no longer generates tools paid by farmers fo milling flour. Never short of ideas, the monks uses the driving force of the waterfall to install a hemp beater.
1646 : Prior Gaspard de Pernes sold the mill to his brother Louis de Pernes, Comte of Epinac who transformed it into a blast furnace and a forge (this is where the name of the halmet comes from today). Due to it's activity the mill is called "the red mill". To feed this furnace where 20 blacksmiths work, the forest visible from to terrace is cleared.
1694 : On this date, we lost track of the activity of the forge. This date corresponds to the reform of forest administration by Colbert. The national forest of "Battées" visible from the terrace owes its name to this period. In the new rationalized forest management, the Batée is an area where felling is authorized every 25 years.
Century XVIII : The mill its original activity.
French revolution : The mill owend by Jules Charles Henri Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre, Marshal and Peer french wassold as national property to the Bonnamour family.
1867 : The Bonnamour family installs new milling machinery and is authorized to continue its activity by ministerial decree. At the time, the mill became the most efficient mill in the depatment.
1903 : The performance of the mill for30 years made the fortune of the Bonnamour family, the heir decided to stop the activity and lived off his fortune in various residences in the surroundings and in more distant lands. For example, the mansion on the order side of the road or the castle of Fretoy 2 miles away.
1943 : Maurice Défontaineacquires the mill, he restarts the mill to make flour with buckwheat harvested on the property. He builds a pigsty and the flour is used to feed the pigs, cow and goats. he animla are used to make meat and charcutery wich are sold to butchers and delicatessens on a axis going from the mill to Amiens where he owned a farm.
1959 : The milling is stopped and the 4-tonne, 6-diameter paddle wheel is dismantled to install an Ossberger electric turbine.
1966 : The reach become an experimental fish enclosure by prefectural decree.
2021 : Le Moulin des Ducs is renovated and becomes the lodging which you occupy, during the renovations a Gllo-Roman stele is found embedded in one of the walls and lets imagine an existence before 1343, investigation in progress...
Wishing seen you soon