Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The estate of Echoisy, located in Cellettes in Charente, occupies the site of an ancient seigneury attested from the eleventh century. Originally, it covered 130 hectares, the fruit of the clearing of the Boixe forest by peasants and monks. The Counts of Angoulême granted land to the Benedictines of Saint-Amant-de-Boixe, before a Cistercian monastery, supported by Bernard de Clairvaux, settled there. He was then dethroned by the Benedictines, who established their priory there. The estate became an active seigneury from the 16th to the early 19th century, sheltering polyculture, breeding and handicrafts (moulins, weaving loom).

In the 18th century, the estate modernized with the establishment of a tile factory (1764) and a first lime oven, followed by the construction of a castle around 1750, destroyed in 1850 by order of its owner. The industrial boom accelerates with the Paris-Bordeaux line (1852), boosting lime production, known nationally for its quality. In 1851, Jean-Auguste Modenel, mayor of Cellettes and notable, completed the destruction of the castle and developed the factory, before its decline in the face of cement in the 1950s. The site, abandoned in 1956, was bought by the commune in 1993 to be preserved.

Since 2021, the Oasis du Coq à l'Ame citizen collective has managed part of the estate, making an ecological and societal transition laboratory. The site has been listed as a historical monument since 1994 for its lime ovens and its quarry, combining industrial heritage, medieval remains (chapel, dovecote, mills) and biodiversity. The buildings, including a renovated mill and doric pilaster outbuildings, illustrate architectural strata from the 11th to the 20th century. Two agricultural activities (spirulina farm and pedagogical farm) and an associative life today animate this emblematic place of the Charente.

The estate is now divided into two distinct properties: one around the mill and its gites, spanning the Charente; The other includes the lime ovens, the noble house, and the remains of a windmill. The Oasis du Coq à l'âme experimentes with shared governance, food autonomy and energy sobriety, supervised by a scientific committee. This project is part of the network of Oasis carried by the Colibris Movement, aimed at creating resilient and supportive eco-friendly environments.

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