Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The House of braids and laces is installed on the site of an ancient water mill attested from the beginning of the sixteenth century. This site, located at the place called the Mill Pinte on the banks of the Dorlay (a tributary of the Gier), was first a milling before becoming a factory of braids and laces in the 19th century. Hydraulic energy, supplied by a six-metre-diameter bearing wheel, enabled up to seven hundred weaving machines, producing various textile articles such as ribbons, stripes or laces.

Between the early 19th and mid 20th centuries, this factory employed about sixty workers. It illustrates local industrialization, linked to the innovation of the weaving trades, whose origins date back to European inventions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1748, the Englishman Thomas Waldford designed the first weaving machine, then perfected by the German Bockmüll (iron trade) and the Frenchman Perrault (a 13-pin wood business, patented in 1784).

Mechanization accelerated at the beginning of the 19th century thanks to Charles-François Richard, who introduced in Saint-Chamond (Loire) improved trades and a steam engine force, giving the region a quasi-monopoly on the production of laces under the Empire. The House of braids and laces, transformed into a museum-workshop since 1993, perpetuates this industrial heritage by operating time machines and making traditional items. It is part of the development of the Pilat Regional Natural Park.

The exposed weaving trades show technical evolution, from manual models to hydraulic machines. Their production was especially used in fashion, with articles such as croquets or stripes. Today, the company of Sainte-Sigolène (Loire), labeled Living Heritage Company, continues this tradition, recalling the historical importance of this industry in the region.

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