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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The oil factory of Fondremand, located in the department of Haute-Saône, was originally an outbuilding of the ordinary mill of the local seigneury under the Ancien Régime. Disused as an oil mill before 1831, it was converted into a wheat drummer in 1834, then expanded around 1860 before stopping any activity for lack of sufficient hydraulic energy. It was transformed into a home at the end of the 19th century and lost its original facilities, reflecting the decline in small rural milling and oil extraction industries.

In 1985, new owners undertook a major rehabilitation of the site, restoring the drained canal and reconstructing a bladed wheel of 5 meters in diameter, operating a rib (vertical wheel) via a gear system. This mechanism, typical of oil mills, was completed between 1996 and 1999 by a press and a boiler, then by two additional presses in 2009, from a nearby mill. The ensemble, registered with the Historical Monuments in 1997 for its facades, roofs and canal, illustrates the preservation of an artisanal heritage that has now disappeared.

The building, built of coated limestone rubble, consists of two distinct bodies: one housing the agricultural parts and the hydraulic wheel, the other serving as a dwelling, covered with a half-croup roof. Powered by the Romaine River, whose source is nearby, the mill used a 6-metre-diameter "below" wheel, characteristic of local hydraulic installations. Although milling activity ceased permanently at the end of 2017, the site remains open to visit, providing concrete evidence of pre-industrial oilseed processing techniques.

The administrative history of the mill reveals its adaptation to economic needs: regulated by royal ordinance in 1834 after the reconstruction of its dam, it was gradually abandoned due to insufficient river flow, as evidenced by a report of 1860 indicating its prolonged unemployment. Its late rehabilitation, from 1986, was intended to restore its primary function, while integrating heritage elements saved from other mills in the region, such as those of Magney and Vezet. This project is part of a broader dynamic of valorizing renewable energies and rural industrial heritage in Burgundy-Franche-Comté.

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