Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The museum Tuilerie de Pouligny, located in Chéniers in the north of the Creuse (Nouveau-Aquitaine), perpetuates the memory of a tilery founded in 1830 by Jean Monsieur, a worker from the south of the department. This industrial site, active for more than a century, illustrates the evolution of the techniques of making tiles and bricks, from handicrafts to progressive mechanization in the 20th century. The tilery was also a place of resistance during the Second World War and a symbol of the local economy, before its closure in 1962.

The site was safeguarded in 1994 thanks to the commitment of the commune of Chéniers, supported by local, regional and European institutions. Open to the public in 2002 in the form of an ecomuseum, the site showcases the know-how related to clay, often overshadowed by the more publicized history of limousine porcelain. The project, carried out by residents of two Creus cantons, aims to preserve a collective memory related to tilers, brickmakers and potters, whose activity dates back to the Gallo-Roman era.

The ecomuseum is distinguished by its faithful reconstruction of the workshops (forge rebuilt in 2007) and its pedagogical approach, focused on the arts of fire and the transmission of ancestral gestures. In 2004, he was awarded the National Prize for Heritage Rubans for the quality of his restoration. Today it bears witness to a rural industrial heritage, marked by internal migration (Dreusian masons) and the gradual disappearance of the earth's trades in the mid-20th century.

The site is part of a broader dynamic of valuing the forgotten Limousin trades, where ceramic utility – tiles, bricks, pottery – played a major economic role before declining in the 1970s. The ecomuseum thus fills a historical void by restoring visibility to these artisans, whose productions have shaped the local built landscape for centuries, from antiquity to the modern era.

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