The Fabrique

Starting from the early 1700s, count Perrone builds some factories in Valpelline and acquires the land and woods for the exploitation of timber, giving life, to the entrance of the village of Valpelline, to an important industrial district now known as La Fabrique.
From the moment of greatest exploitation, in the middle of the 1700s, until the end of the 1800s, the works proceed intermittently.
A detailed description of the first processing techniques can be found in the reports of the inspector Esprit-Benoît Nicolis de Robilant, who describes the activity in the second half of the 18th century. An initial sorting of the material takes place in the proximity of the mines. The extracted material is calcined on top of a layer of wood near the Les Rey complex in Ollomont, then loaded on the back of a mule and sent to the Valpelline foundries, which at that time consisted of two “elevated furnaces”, fed by several hydroeolic shafts, located upstream of the village.