Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

Ramond was founded in 1841 by Jean Chabbert in Lacaune, Tarn. Its aim was to transform the wool of sheep raised in the surrounding mountains. The building housed innovative machines for the time, such as drummers, card-makers and a loom imported from Mercier in the Eure. The hydraulic energy, provided by a stream captured on a nearby hill, operated a turbine connected to a central transmission shaft. This system, supplemented by control tanks, operated until 1909, when the Chabbert family sold the spinning.

In 1909, Émile and Jacques Viala, whose Emile was a ferblantier in Lacaune, bought the plant and modernized its energy system by installing a steam machine. The spinning changed hands again in 1923, when it was acquired by René Carayon, a Roquecurbe industrialist. From 1924, the latter rented it to Omer Léon Ramond, who became owner in 1926. Under his leadership, the mill adopted electricity in 1940, but its decline began in the 1950s in the face of competition from synthetic fibres. The successive dismissals of the ten workers led to its final closure in 1992.

All the machines, which were exceptionally well preserved, allowed Louis Ramond, the last spinner, to open a museum in 1994. The building, which was listed as historic monuments in the same year, preserved intact its 19th-century production process, from raw wool to final skein. On the ground floor, machines such as the battler, the wolf (squeaky) and five rods prepare the wires, while on the upper floor, a rare semi-automatic 200-pin mule-jeny leaves the fibres. This industrial heritage illustrates the technological adaptation and economic challenges of small rural manufacturers.

Architecturally, the spinning is presented as a rectangular one-storey building, built of coated stone and covered with slates. Its lintel bears the date of 1841, and its façade has a zinc cartridge with the inscription Filature Ramond. Today, the museum exhibits a complete manufacturing route, including a coiler, a doubler, a 100-pin twister (old transformed jenny mule) and a skein reel. This site, still owned by the Ramond family, offers a unique testimony of the traditional wool industry and its technical evolution over more than a century.

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