Heritage: Mill enthusiasts continue to sow seeds of projects in the Dordogne

The Association of Mills of Périgord (AMPN) is stepping up its activities from June 16 to 22, during a week that marks the first Spring of Mills. Beyond educational activities for schoolchildren, members are looking ahead, with the aim of expanding the network of milling villages.

A busy week for milling and heritage enthusiasts with Moulins en Fête, an event that concludes the three-month Printemps des Moulins festival. The week began on Monday, June 16, at the Moulin de l'Évêque in Vézac, with a discovery day for students from Saint-Geniès, followed by a discovery day for schoolchildren from Thonac on Tuesday, June 17.

These meetings were planned before the opening on the evening of June 17th, at the Carsac-Aillac media library, of the exhibition of work by schoolchildren from six schools in the Périgord Noir (Borrèze, Thonac, La Chapelle-Aubareil, Saint-Geniès, Salignac-Eyvigues and a class from the Ferdinand-Buisson school in Sarlat): "nearly 180 schoolchildren," appreciates Jean-Claude Grégory, the secretary of the Association of Mills of the Périgord Noir (AMPN), who is in charge with the president Elie Coustaty. The latter, to show the children around his Moulin de l'Évêque, donned a miller's outfit.

True to its "safeguard, enhance, and promote" triptych, the AMPN is carrying out actions that include "visits to a fish farm and an artisanal bakery in Saint-Crépin-et-Carlucet," continues Jean-Claude Grégory. Elie Coustaty, for his part, welcomed Spanish middle school students: "a country where they are more accustomed to windmills, not watermills like us," he explains.

The AMPN is already working on the 2026 edition of Moulins en fête, which will be launched by storyteller Daniel Chavaroche, following on from historian Anne Bécheau in 2025. Musical strolls have already been announced.

Another certainty: the coming years of the AMPN will be marked by a strengthening of collaborations with a view to setting up nature walks, for example with technicians specialized in fishing initiation, as well as representatives of the Joint Syndicate of Studies and Works for the Development and Protection (Smetap) of the Dordogne River.

Beyond these educational activities, the AMPN aims to develop millers' trails in municipalities that have preserved a milling tradition. Twelve years after the launch of the first trail along the Inval in Borrèze, eight other routes have been created (1), as well as a millstone path in Domme. Two municipalities are currently targeted: "Nadaillac and Proissans, where it would be fantastic. Because we would have a continuity of paths all along the Énéa," hopes Jean-Claude Grégory, who is also working to extend the route from Borrèze to Souillac, in the Lot, following the river of the same name.

At the same time, in September, the Carsac-Aillac route will be the fourth to join the Dorie digital ecotourism application, after those of Vézac, Valojoux and Borrèze.

(1) In Carsac-Aillac, Vézac, Valojoulx, Sainte-Nathalène, Saint-Vincent-le-Paluel, Sainte-Mondane, Archignac and Saint-Geniès.