Neufchâteau   ▪

History and architecture
The course of the river
Grandvoir, the castle and ironworks
Hamipré, the church and the convent
The village of Lahérie
Longlier
The village of Massul
The Nolinfaing wash house
Le Sart
Engraved and scuplted shale: funerary monuments
Warmifontaine and the slate quarry

The village of Lahérie.

Lahérie has managed to retain the traditional character of an Ardennes village. Its farms have altered very little in appearance. Up until the French Revolution, this village played a more important role than the number of its inhabitants would lead one to believe. A court of justice was located here and the mill attracted farmers from all across the region.

The mill is mentioned for the first time in 1551. The mills made their mark upon the Ardennes landscape, as they did elsewhere in all agricultural regions. There were various different types of mill: those for grinding grains to feed people and livestock, tanning mills which grind oak bark and supply the tanneries and those for crushing beechnuts and other oily grains to extract the oil from them (oil mill). The Lahérie mill was of the first type. This mill was not a seigneurial mill, unlike the other mills in the region. Seigneurial mills belonged to the landowner and the inhabitants were obliged to grind their grains here. The French bourgeois (346 of the 802 heads of household in Neufchâteau in 1785) were not bound by these regulations and could use private mills, such as the Lahérie mill.
The farm is made of rubble stones with a peeling façade and plain at the back. Under its slate hipped gable roof, the living accommodation extends to the right and stables under the hayloft to the left. The frames of the rectangular openings are often in yellow sandstone. The farm was sold in 1991 and completely changed its function. The current owner, Philippe Devos, breeds and sells ducks.
Roughly 1,300 of these palimpeds are force fed daily. The company supplies the Horica sector of the province and numerous individuals from across Belgium with its products and with foie gras in particular.