THE CONSERVATORY, A SINGLE PURPOSE : PRESERVE FOR THE FUTURE GENERATIONS.

HISTORY

« In 1992, after a property was found in Vassogne, the collection of tools for handcrafting began. My ancestors were a masonry contractor and a little farmer since the end of the XIXth century. The masonry firm Maroteaux-Cabaret took an important part in the reconstruction of the Craonne district and when they shut down, they left lots of tools for masonry, roofing, plastering, farming but also a huge amount of archives. The idea of a museum soon came to my mind. I then started to collect the tools for masonry and farming I could find on flea markets and yard sales in the Aisne district. It soon appeared to me that all those tools had something in common : they were, in their shape, the result of the first World War in the district. A great deal of industrial objects were associated with those transformed after the war. I then felt that those local tools had to be possibly compared with the ones from other regions.

THE COLLECTIONS

Now in charge of around 6000 tools and objects of popular art, of a fund of 200 linear metres of business and documentation archives about tools, the « Chemin des Dames » and Aisne as well as of an important library, I started to build, a Conservatory whose pupose is to preserve this outstanding heritage. » Stéphane Bedhome.