Timeline

Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The tilery of Champtonnay, located in the commune of the same name in Haute-Saône, was built in 1839 by Noël Poisse, Jean-François Jeannot and Joseph Tiébaud, authorized by royal ordinance. Organized around a courtyard, it included a lantern oven, a drying hall, a barn and a dwelling, all designed for artisanal production of tiles, bricks and lime. The clay, extracted nearby, was hand-cuffed, and the pieces were moulded and then baked in a wood oven.

Operated without mechanization by three generations of the Dubois family (Nicolas, Henri, then Émile), the tilery ceased its activity in 1922. The buildings, converted to a farm, retain their original structure, including the oven and dryer, connected by a covered passage. Their authenticity earned the site an inscription in the Supplementary Inventory of Historic Monuments in 1993, as an exceptional witness to the small rural tiles of the 19th century.

The production was based on traditional techniques: clay had been transported from a nearby quarry and the parts were dried and then cooked in wood-heated ovens. After 1922, the kiln became a barn and the kiln was a fenil, thus preserving their characteristic architecture, with almost intact roofs. The lack of modernization and family transmission illustrate the typical operation of the craft tiles of the era, now almost disappeared.

The site, located along departmental road 67, has an approximate location (estimated at 6/10). The protected elements include the oven hangar, the drying shed and their covered passage, inscribed by order of 5 October 1993. The tilery thus embodies a rural industrial heritage, marked by its post-industrial adaptation to farming.

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