The Loire Valley and especially Blois
The construction at 13 rue Pierre de Blois, known as Hôtel de Villebresme, or more recently, and for no justifiable reason, as the house of Denis Papin, in honour of the city’s inventor of the steam engine (hang on, wasn’t that James Watt?) and the pressure cooker, were built in the 15th and perhaps early …
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Here is a close-up of the sculptures on the Acrobats’ House. On the ground floor, not shown here, the subjects are religious, especially angels. On the first floor, a jongler or minstrel can be seen in the middle, with a figure wearing a hat with an upturned brim on the right. The one on the …
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The Acrobats’ House, one of the oldest in Blois, has two jettied upper storeys with brackets and corbelling carved with scenes and characters from mediaeval comic tales or fables. Only half-timbered houses with very rich decoration can be dated. Here, the clothing of the figures on the façade is prior to 1480. This has been …
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The Saint-Jacques Windmill is an Angevin-type cavier or post mill, highly recognisable due to its circular stone building surmounted by a wooden cone supporting a windshaft or hucherolle to which the sails are attached. Movement is transmitted through the cone to millstones placed at the base. One of the first to be built in Loire-et-Cher in the early 19th …
Continue reading “Le moulin Saint Jacques – St Jacques Windmill, Saint-Laurent-Nouan”