When were the
Three Fountains born?
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The place called "les Trois Fontaines"
has been around for more than 2 centuries
On an old postcard called "Le Clain au Trois Fontaines" (photo Gérard Simmat collection), the house on the left is the one in front of ours (48-52 avenue de Paris), and at the top of the cliff, we recognize the Chapel of the Community of Wisdom, at 42 rue de la Cueille Mirebalaise.
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On Napoleon's land register, the locality "les Trois Fontaines" is located 350 m from our home, at the current n ° 75 of the avenue de Paris (formerly "main road"), where the chemin du Trait Tabouleau winds its way from Avenue de Paris to Porteau.
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A fountain is also mentioned to the left of n ° 66, a few steps from our house. This fountain still exists, and you just have to go down a few steps to get there.
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In front of this fountain, corresponding to the current n ° 39, was a granting office: it is there that the goods entering Poitiers were taxed. This local tax disappeared in France after the Second World War, in 1948.
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"Roulage" designated
freight transport
by horse-drawn carriage
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The house is located, in reality, between two localities: the Petite Vacherie (towards Paris, n ° 29 and perhaps also our number, the 27) and the "Accelerated Roulage" (towards Poitiers, n ° 23 and 25 ).
In the past, "roulage" referred to the transport of goods by horse-drawn carriage. At the end of the 19th century, ordinary "roulage" covered 30 to 40 km per day, while accelerated "roulage" went up to 75 km per day: Paris-Poitiers in 4 days! Since then, we have made some progress! We can therefore assume that at the beginning of the 19th century, numbers 23 and 25 included stables, hay barns, merchandise storage shelters ... Numbers 30 to 66 were the "Jardins du roulage".
You will find other old postcards
at the bottom of this page
Le Clain aux Trois Fontaines, Collection Gérard Simmat
The house was built around 1900
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As for the house itself, it dates back to 1900, and on the aerial photos of Géoportail, we can note some stages of its successive enlargements since the original construction, still unchanged in 1924. Inside, the two load-bearing walls are still in wood.
Small curiosity: rue de la Cueille Mirebalaise (literally the hill that leads to Mirebeau), at n ° 12, a door now walled up allowed us to go down into our garden: we can still see its doorway.
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Sources:
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the Departmental Archives of Vienne, Napoleonic cadastre , section B3
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Geoportal , cadastral plots