The Vendée, land of flour mills

The Vendée was long a land of mills — one of the very first in France. This wheat-growing region ranked among the top three French departments for its number of windmills.

Photo: Antistrophe — Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

A land of mills

In 1809, at the imperial census and the height of their history, the Vendée counted more than 2,000 mills, around 1,200 of them windmills — a figure that places the department among the top three in France. The first recorded Vendée windmill dates back to 1205, on the island of Yeu.

Water, wind and tide

The Vendée bocage and its cereal plain shaped a dense network of watermills (on the rivers, and even tidal ones as at Noirmoutier) and windmills. In the western Vendée their job was almost exclusively flour making — wheat being the region’s great crop.

Exceptional survivors

• The Rairé windmill (Sallertaine): the only mill in France that has never stopped turning to the wind since it was built. Run by the Burgaud family, it now produces organic flours.
• La Maison de la Meunerie (Nieul-sur-l’Autise, Rives-d’Autise): a working watermill with guided tours and wood-fired oven baking demonstrations.
• Les moulins du Terrier Marteau (Pouzauges): restored heritage, open to the public.

Decline and conversion

From the second half of the 19th century, steam and then electricity doomed the small mills. The Wars of the Vendée and later the Second World War also left their mark on this heritage. Today many of these mills are restored and open to visitors.

A land of welcome

This milling memory did not stay frozen: the Vendée has also become a land of large gîtes. Former flour mills and old mills now welcome families and groups, between covered pools and spas, a stone’s throw from Puy du Fou or the ocean. The Vendée tells this continuity between milling memory and hospitality better than most places.

Sources

• Mérimée database — Ministry of Culture
• Rairé windmill (Sallertaine) and Maison de la Meunerie (Rives-d’Autise), named in the text