If at the end of the year, the Vallois rope museum in Notre-Dame-de-Bondeville celebrates its thirtieth anniversary, the place almost never saw the light of day. “It is certain that we had to convince the elected officials one by one and demonstrate persistence,” remembers Alain Alexandre, one of the pioneers behind the conservation of a site dedicated to the industrial past of the Cailly valley and in memory of those who worked there for almost a century.
Because even if this old mechanical rope factory, whose history dates back to the 16th century, was included in the supplementary inventory of historic monuments in 1975 while it was still in operation – it did not close until 1978 – not many people at the time didn't really think about his future. “There was even a project for an intercommunal swimming pool in its place, before its classification,” recalls the former history professor, convinced from the start that it was necessary to preserve the atmosphere of this last witness still standing in a fashion of life disappearing. “We wanted to leave it in its original state, while opening it to as many people as possible.”
But as Mylène Beaufils, collection manager at the rope factory, points out, the textile industry at the end of the 1970s was “rather synonymous with social plans and closure, liquidation and deindustrialization. We had to mourn an era.” This is confirmed by Alain Alexandre: “For the elected officials, the heritage was a church, a castle, a calvary… It didn't smell like grease. It wasn't full of machines, grease and dust! Their reflex was rather to raze everything and turn the page.”
So for thirteen years, within the Association of the Museum of Man and Industry, this group of enthusiasts did not give up, supported by Pierre Vallois, grandson of the former owner and by the last director of the rope factory, Maurice Mallet. “In 1991, an exhaustive inventory was carried out,” adds Mylène Beaufils. “This made it possible, once the restoration work essential to welcoming the public was completed, to be able to reinstall each machine in its original place and make them function as before.” To ultimately make the Vallois rope factory, when it opened in 1994, the first industrial museum in France.
“From the start we wanted to make it a lively place,” recalls Alain Alexandre who is still happy today with this innovative choice for the time. “Today, when classes come, students can discover with their senses this past very far from their daily lives and their smartphones. It moves, it makes noise, it smells of dust. They can better understand what it was like to work in those conditions.” A thankless job which has nevertheless nourished entire generations of families in this working-class valley.
Owned today by the Rouen-Normandie Metropolis, the museum has retained the same spirit during its thirty years of existence, enriched with temporary exhibitions as is the case until next June with a presentation devoted to the period of Reconstruction, in particular that of the means of production and factories. “There is a logical link with the history of rope making,” underlines Mylène Beaufils. “And unfortunately with current world news…”
