The mills of Brouzarède, Cevennes, Patrimony St. Germain de Calberte

The mills at La Brouzarède

La Brouzarède lies about 2 kilometres north of St Germain. There the river - the Gardon de St Germain - runs through a miniature gorge about 2 kilometres in length passing under an old bridge for the old road to St André. built in the 17th or 18th century.

The modern road, constructed at the beginning of this century, uses a new bridge about 400 metres upstream.The two mills are situated a little downstream of the old bridge. They are fairly typical of the local architecture and very similar to the many other abandoned mills in Lozère. Their surface area is less than 20 square metres.

There is a small cellar in which the horizontal wheel was located which drove the millstones placed immediately above.

Both mills appear to have had two wheels and two sets of stones. One of them has an extra floor above, for storing the grain or for the miller to camp out if he had to work at night.

One of the mills, now roofless, was last used in the 1920's for milling dried chestnuts for mixing with cacao to make a breakfast food popular at the time, but the other one has probably not ground grain for well over a hundred years.

The milllstones are still there but the wooden mill-wheels have long since rotted away leaving only a few of the metal parts.

The site has been used for milling for several centuries but little is as yet known about its early history. Major alterations were made in the early 19th century, including the building of a new reservoir and the filling in of the old one, which must have been too weak to withstand the force of the river during exceptional rains.

(In the Cevennes one occasionally has as much as 30 centimetres of rain in 24 hours and a metre in a week!)
There are the remains of a very small thirdmill older than the other two and also some mysterious holes cut into the rock at regular intervals across the river which obviously served to support a temporary wooden dam, the purpose of which is unclear.The mills took their water from a small dam about 300 metres upstream.

Part of the water in the river was diverted along a little channel (called a béal) which here is about 60 cm wide and 30-40 cm deep, to fill a reservoir (mill-pool) beside the mill. Because of the enormous variations in the amount of water in the river the mills had to be placed out of danger

- they could not use the water from the river directly.
When the reservoir was full a trap about 15cm by 15 cm would be opened to let the water drive the wheel.
When the reservoir was empty - after an hour to an hour and a half - the mill would have to stop until it had refilled, which would take several hours. One reservoir full would allow the milling of about one sack of flour.

There is a project under way to restore these mills and their spectacular site. In about five years it is hoped that one of the mills will be completely restored and capable of functioning, the béal repaired and a large number of local and regional plants introduced to give a botanical interest to the site.

Much, however, will depend on voluntary help to clean and repair the béal, rebuild a number of stone walls etc so if anyone is interested in a working holiday in a wonderful spot on a small but rewarding project they should get in touch with the owner.

E-mail address: ptcockle@orange.fr