If artisans from all over France participated directly in the restoration project of Notre-Dame de Paris, Hauts-de-France provided a quantity of raw materials. Stone and wood from the region are now part of one of the most visited historical and religious monuments in the world.
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If you are going to visit the restored Notre-Dame de Paris, look carefully around you. Look up. Take the time to admire what is around you. Perhaps your gaze will linger on a balustrade, a beam, a gargoyle. Perhaps, probably, one of them will be carved from a block of stone or a tree from Hauts-de-France.
What will strike you is “the blondness of this stone that our eyes had never seen. (…) This stone taken from the very pulpit of our country, from the quarries of Picardy“, underlined Emmanuel Macron during his speech which closed the end-of-construction visit this Friday, November 29.
Only the La Croix-Huyart quarry, in Bonneuil-en-Valois in Oise, could provide the 1,300 m3 of stone to rebuild Notre-Dame de Paris
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© FTV
A stone from the Oise quarries to be precise. A 45 million year old Lutetian limestone, historic material of the cathedral. Of all the quarries likely to produce a stone with aesthetic and physicochemical characteristics identical to the original stone and identified by the Geological and Mining Bureau, that of La Croix-Huyart, in Bonneuil-en-Valois in the Oise, has proven to be the only one capable of providing the sought-after Grail.
The day of the fire, we were there to deliver stones.
Olivier Rambach, sales manager – Société nouvelle Saint-Pierre Aigle
In total, 1300 m³ were needed to restore Notre-Dame de Paris. Among the three Picardy extraction companies, the Société Nouvelle de Saint-Pierre-Aigle in Aisne supplied 800 m³. “In terms of tonnage, this represents approximately 1,840 tonnes, figure Olivier Rambach, sales manager of the company. There was an inventory of careers that could meet the needs which was done after the fire and we were selected. We had a contract for a specific volume with a schedule to respect. It took us almost a year and a half. We provided blocks of hard rock which were then made available to the companies responsible for the restoration.“Blocks used for the sideboard walls which support the frame, but also for the buttresses which support the vault, balustrades and sculptures.
If the Axon company has been working on the Notre-Dame construction sites since the 1980s, this one is special: “There is a lot of pride. Because this is THE restaurant, supports Olivier Rambach. Especially since the day of the fire, we were there to deliver stones.“
Olivier Rambach and around ten employees attended the end-of-construction visit to Notre-Dame de Paris. And in the middle of the 1 300 other people invited, in the nave of the cathedral, Emmanuel Macron also spoke about wood. “Thank you to everyone who brought the Forest back to life, he said, referring to the frame of the building. 2 000 oaks passed into the hands of foresters and sawyers.“
The Forest of Notre-Dame de Paris in full reconstruction.
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© FTV
Oaks from all over France and in particular from the forests of Hauts-de-France: Mormal, Compiègne, Retz, Halatte, Marfontaine and Neuville-en-Hetz. In total, the region will have provided nearly 200 logs which today support the roof of Notre-Dame. Robust, century-old oak logs, knotless, straight and measuring between 10 and 15 meters.
Among the sawyers, Philippe Seynave, boss of the custom Wood sawmill located in Wimy in Aisne. The company was selected for its specialty: long length. “We made the chassis, the seat of the boom. There are around twenty sawyers who worked on the boom, but there are only 4 of us in France doing more than 9 meters, they explain to us. We had the market from 9 to 15 meters. And the delivery of the 15 meter one was complicated: we had to get it right into the truck without damaging it. It took us a good half hour, three quarters of an hour to get there.“
Among the approximately 2,000 oaks used to rebuild the framework of Notre-Dame de Paris, around 200 come from the forests of Hauts-de-France.
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© FTV
A project that required a lot of sacrifices: “We worked 15 to 16 hour days for months.(…) It took us a lot of time because there were very strict specifications to respect. It was so precise. The cuts had to be perfect. You had to take your time. A beam sometimes took us two hours to do.“In total, Philippe Seynave and his team will have provided around forty beams.
Although he is a little disappointed not to be invited either to the end-of-construction visit or to the official reopening on December 7, Philippe Seynave still feels “a lot of pride because it’s Notre-Dame and it had to be done.“He knows that a project of this magnitude and this reputation only comes along once in the life of a craftsman, he who had thought it was a joke when he was called to participate.
The people here were proud and happy because it is still something from an architectural, historical and heritage point of view.
Jean-Jacques Thomas, mayor (PS) of Hirson
And thanks to him, an oak from the Hirson forest is today installed somewhere in the Notre-Dame forest: “a beam was missing, we are told at Wood tailor. So we contacted the mayor of Hirson to find out if there was a tree that could match.“
After crisscrossing the forest of the commune, the sawyer identified in March 2022 a tree 12.20 meters high and 73 centimeters in diameter which the town hall gave free of charge for the restoration of the cathedral. “It does something, concedes Jean-Jacques Thomas, the mayor (PS) of the city. I say to myself, 'Hey, there is part of our local heritage in Notre-Dame. And the people here were proud and happy because it is still something from an architectural, historical and heritage point of view. When I return to Notre-Dame, I will roll my eyes and say to myself, there is a part of Hirson up there.“
