Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Moulin Vertu, located in Roy-Boissy in Hauts-de-France, is a hydraulic mill whose origins date back to the 12th century, although its current structure dates mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries. It was rebuilt in the 18th century after a devastating flood, then deeply transformed in the 19th century, especially between 1872 and 1894, to adopt a typical configuration of picardian farms in square. Its buildings, organized around a closed courtyard, mix wood, torchis and brick, and still house original milling mechanisms, such as the blade wheel, grinding wheels and blutery.

The mill has had several vocations over the centuries: bed linen mill, oil mill, paper mill (mentioned in 1571), and finally converted into a flour mill in the 18th century. After the Revolution, it was sold as a national good and changed several times, each bringing modernizations, such as the transition to economic milling around 1860 or the addition of agricultural outbuildings between 1872 and 1894. His activity ceased in 1918, but his tools, including a restored wheel and blutery devices, were preserved, offering a rare testimony of traditional milling techniques.

The site, powered by the Thérain, also preserves traces of its hydraulic evolutions: wheel over (1727), wheel below (1762), wheel with pots (1806), and then back to a covered blade wheel around 1830-1840. These transformations, often linked to floods or changes in owners, reflect the technical and economic adaptations of pox suckers. Ranked a Historic Monument in 1990, the mill benefited from a complete restoration, highlighting its architecture and mechanisms, including a cast iron steering wheel and grinding wheels still in place.

Among the notable owners, Eugene Vertu (1870s) expanded the estate by buying communal land to build barns, while his widow, Irène Laignier, and their son Gaston Vertu-Lavigne continued the activity until 1918. The mill also preserves objects bearing evidence of that time, such as a stencil to stamp grain bags. Today, the site, with its protected facades, roofs, wheel, vanage and bypass canal, offers a remarkable example of rural industrial heritage, combining technical history and vernacular architecture.

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