Circuit des Fours à Chaux

LOCATION Argentré, 11 km east of Laval
PARKING Behind the town hall N 48.08401 °, W 0.64195 °

THINGS TO SEE ALONG THE WAY
- Château de Montaigu (private) - Moulin neuf rockfill channel - Rocher lime kiln - Halte du Rocher - Montroux quarry

1. To the left of the town hall, go down Rue Froide. To the right of the Picard cross, a sunken path leads to the causeway of the old Trompe-Souris mill (a milling name) and ponds. Pass under the bridge over the old departmental road.

2. Take the footbridge along the Jouanne under the motorway as far as Moulin de la Place. Follow the LGV line for 400 m. Descend gently to join the Jouanne. On the left bank, a wooded limestone cliff. Nineteenth-century château with pretty gazebo at the top of the hill. Further downstream, on the other side of the fish pass, the Moulin Neuf with its millstream and paddle wheel.

3. After the Ermitage mill, the old Rocher lime kiln. Turn left for 100 m along the old tramway route, then right onto the Chemin de la Fuye. Pass over the motorway and LGV. After the Montroux lime kiln, there is a pumping station with a complex for purifying and softening the highly calcareous water.

4. Take the left-hand path through the conservatory orchard to the D32, then back to the town hall.


HERITAGE
Marble and lime Argentré's subsoil is sandstone to the north and schist to the south. The land is mostly gently undulating. The Jouanne flows through a fault that shears through a carboniferous limestone formation. From the 17th century onwards, this led to the development of a black marble quarry at Le Rocher and a grey marble quarry at Montroux. The latter quarry was exploited as early as the 13th century. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, its rose-veined grey marble was highly prized by marble masons in Laval and throughout the west of the country. Several altars in the church at Argentré are made from this marble. In the 19th century, these quarries continued to be exploited for their limestone. The tramway line linking Laval to Saint- Jean- sur- Erve, inaugurated in 1900 and abandoned in 1934, served the Rocher lime kilns (7745 passengers in 1902) and the market town of Argentré (16118 passengers that same year). The station can still be seen in the village.

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