Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The forges of Grand-Valay, located in Valay (Haute-Saône), were built at the end of the seventeenth century under the impulse of Joseph-François Pétremand de Valay, holder of letters patent dated 22 November 1689. The site, using the Turouge's hydraulic power to operate its bellows, produced renowned fonts, exported to other regional forges such as those of Moncley or Pesmes. In the 18th century, the Rossigneux family managed it, maintaining an annual production of about 500 tons of cast iron, despite periods of inactivity due to water shortages.

The industrial complex, organized around a blast furnace with a slope and covered with a hipped roof, included a casting hall below, a coal hall, as well as workers' and employers' houses in limestone stone. The latter, dated from the middle of the eighteenth century, illustrate the social organization of the site. In 1783, two hydraulic wheels operated the bellows and a patouillet, before the early introduction of a steam machine (6 hp) around 1825, marking a technical modernization.

Metallurgical activity ceased in 1875, leaving room for a sawmill in 1905, specialized in building parts and railway ties, with a capacity of 1,500 tons annually. The sawmill, equipped with a poor gas engine in the 1930s, shut down permanently in 1970. The site, partially demolished and transformed in 1888, was listed as a historical monument in 1997 and then classified in 1999, thus preserving an emblematic industrial heritage of the region.

The buildings, characteristic of the industrial architecture of the Ancien Régime, include long-paned roofs, foothills, and commemorative plaques, such as that of 1790 in the employer housing. The property, which remained in the Pétremand de Valay family until the mid-19th century, was then leased to various forge masters, including Adrien Rochet (1791) or the Ménans brothers (from 1834), before its acquisition by Gustave Robinet around 1854. The factory, regulated by prefectural decree in 1886, now preserves the traces of its technological evolution, such as the remains of boilers in the casting hall.

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