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Origin and history

The old mill of the Amidonniers, built at the end of the 18th century in Toulouse, was originally a paper mill destroyed by a flood in 1790. Restored in 1798 by François Plohais, it became a cotton spinning machine equipped with a blade wheel and was modernized in 1833 by Edmond de Planet with English machines. This versatile industrial site will successively house a pastel blue factory (imperial indexery), a foundry, a dye shop, and a pasta factory until 1922.

The building, characteristic of Toulouse's functional architecture (bricks, tiles, overflowing foreground), was ceded in 1939 to the diocese of Toulouse. Transformed into a Saint Paul church after 1964, he was enrolled in the Historic Monuments in 1991 for his facades and roofs, testifying to the adaptation of industrial heritage to religious use. Its location on the edge of the canalet, with foundations once plunged into the water, recalls its hydraulic origin.

Inside, the millroom, located below, retains two large brick arches, vestige of its initial milling activity. The floors, largely partitioned during successive occupations, saw their raised level by one metre. This mill embodies the urban hydraulic omnibus, an economic model where the city of Toulouse granted free land to industrialists to stimulate local activity.

A fire victim in 1854, the factory was rebuilt by Edmond de Planet, who diversified production (agricultural machinery, gluten, starch). After his industrial abandonment in 1922, the site was entrusted to the Sisters of the Foreign Missions and then to the parish of Saint Paul. Today, it combines technical heritage — visible in its original structure — and cultural function, while remaining a rare example of early industrialisation in Toulouse.

The 1991 protection allowed a renovation inaugurated in 1995, preserving an emblematic building in the Amidonniers district. Its history reflects the economic changes (from paper to pasta) and social changes (from factory to church) in Toulouse between the 18th and 20th centuries.

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