10 August 2019

Éolienne Bollée in Berchères-les-Pierres, Eure-et-Loir (28)

This we stumbled upon quite by chance: a lavoir with an éolienne Bollée. The latter is a water pump driven by wind and invented by Ernest-Sylvain Bollée (1814-1891), a kind which was operative in France from 1872 to 1933. About 350 once existed, mainly in France, and of which about 80 can still be seen. In 1993 this pump in Berchères-les-Pierres was declared a Monument Historique. Bollée died on horseback in an accident with a tram.

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