guided tour of the Goose Nest mill
Guided tour of the old flour mill at 11am and 12pm on Saturdays and at 11am, 12pm, 3pm, 4pm and 5pm upon reservation.
The mills of «Nidoye» were mentioned in 1216 and, originally, in the profits of Saint Jouin de Marnes being, like the Espinose, attached to the parish of Saint Jacques.
Doctor Duboueix’s memory of the Clisson factory in 1789 tells us that in 1785, in the same place, the Bourquieu and Boudry Sieurs, Swiss workers, had set up a factory of "Indian" (printed cotton fabrics). They were both very clever and intelligent workers, one for engraving, the other for printing and color manipulation.
Confiscated from the Revolution, they then belong to a family of noble emigrants. The "miller’s house" was burned down with its outbuildings and stables.
In the course of 1836, the mayor of Clisson, Félix Gautret-Piou, went to Nidoye to see the damage done to the owners by cutting the roadway. Indeed, the bridge was being built on Route 21 from Ancenis to Montaigu. About twenty workers, most of them from Brittany, were busy setting up and cutting stone.
The hillsides of Nidoye settled on both banks of the Sèvre river, the right bank joining the Palzaise Gate remaining still little inhabited. The left bank seems much more active. The Deniaud brothers succeeded their father who was killed on the hillside in 1794.
In addition to the flour mill, they operate a bark mill (tan mill). Their sister-in-law, Marie Housset, is also a miller and Sieur Roulaud is a papermaker. Ten years later, he gave way to millers.