Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The former Mahieu bleaching plant, located in Erquinghem-Lys on the banks of the Lys, was built in 1892 in the last quarter of the 19th century. Belonging to the textile ensemble Auguste Mahieu, it was dedicated to bleaching and cremating linen yarns and cloths. The factory was built around a cobbled courtyard, with homogeneous brick buildings: dewatering workshops, drying (including an iconic room with wooden windbreaks), and bleaching with sheds. An internal rail network allowed the transport of wagons between bleaching baths and dryers, which are now missing.

During the First World War, the factory suffered partial destruction and did not resume operations until the early 1920s. It finally ceased operation in August 1955, before being sold in 1962 to the establishments Superia, a Belgian moped company. Resumed in 1985 by Ramery, it then served as a warehouse for construction equipment. The drying room building, which was listed as a historic monument in 2000, is now largely collapsed (2023). Nearby, the working-class city of Fort-Mahieu, composed of about 140 joint houses, bears witness to the social organization linked to the factory.

Architecturally, the factory is distinguished by its wooden frames, its zinc roofs or long panels, and its mechanical systems such as chains and pulleys for handling tanks. The Rue des Frères-Mahieu, in impasse, was closed by the Lys, while the entrance was surrounded by foreman's quarters and a building housing offices and garages. This site illustrates the textile industrial heritage of the North, marked by the use of hydraulic force and a functional spatial organization, typical of the factories of the time.

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