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Origin and history

The press at Magny-le-Freule Castle, also known as a press barn, is an installation dedicated to the production of cider, located in the delegated commune of Magny-le-Freule, within Mézidon Vallée d'Auge (Calvados, Normandy). Dated from the first half of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is part of the estate of Magny-le-Freule Castle, whose origins date back to the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries. This press, made of wood and granite, includes a tank, a wheel operated by a horse, and a screw system. It operated until the late 1950s.

The building houses on the ground floor an apple tower, a long-street press and a pantry, while on the first floor there is an apple room accessible by an external staircase. The pile, used to grind apples, dates from the late 16th or early 17th century. The whole was inscribed in the historical monuments by decree of 26 August 1986, thus recognizing its historic and technical importance in Norman cidric history.

This press illustrates the traditional methods of cider production, a major economic activity in Normandy since the Middle Ages. The equipment, still partially preserved, bears witness to the artisanal know-how and the agricultural organisation of the seigneurial areas and then rural. Its final stop in the 1950s marked the end of a pre-industrial era for the manufacture of cider in the region.

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