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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Veurière lime ovens, located in Angrie en Maine-et-Loire, constitute an industrial complex dating from the 2nd quarter of the 19th century. The first oven, built in 1824 for Ferdinand Cadorais, was a small vertical oven, heated with charcoal, to produce lime for agriculture and construction. This initial oven, which is now destroyed, only remains by part of its access ramp. The activity was developed under the impulse of Charles de La Brosse-Flavigny, who had three additional furnaces built between 1850 and 1889, integrated into two massifs laid together by a long ramp made of shale. These structures, 10 to 15 metres high, operated in continuous cooking thanks to carnets and steam machinery installed in 1853, and subsequently upgraded in 1871.

The factory, which employed local workers, reached a production of 18 500 hectolitres of lime at the end of the 19th century. The coal came from Montrelais (Loire-Atlantique), and the furnaces, equipped with a tridirectional unloading system, were designed to withstand thermal dilation through foothills. In 1889, the site belonged to the Société des Fours à chalk de la Veurrière, which also operated other local plants. However, the company went bankrupt in 1911, and production finally ceased in 1913. The ovens, registered as historic monuments in 1980, are today a rare testimony of the lime industry supplied in Anjou, with their granite and red shale massifs, their bays in full hanger and their characteristic access ramp.

The site also includes ancillary buildings: a employer's home, workers' housing, warehouses and a barn, all backed by ramps or located near quarries. The steam engine, initially of 4 horses and then brought to 10-12 horses, was used for extraction and exhaure, replacing a former horse ride. The cadastral archives (1832, 1853, 1953) attest to the evolution of the site, marked by the relocation of the installations to the west in the 3rd quarter of the 19th century. The ovens, with a capacity of about 80 m3 each, illustrate an industrial technology typical of their time, combining mechanical innovation and craftsmanship.

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