Picture this: a narrow passage barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. This is the Passage des Fours à Chaux. Its name whispers of a time long past a time when the very ground beneath our feet hummed with activity.
The Passage des Fours à Chaux lies in Paris’s 19th arrondissement. It’s a short passage starting at 117 Avenue Simon-Bolivar and ending in a dead end. But don’t let its unassuming length fool you. This seemingly ordinary passage holds centuries of history within its walls.
Imagine the 13th century. Open-air quarries dotted the landscape near the pressoir Saint-Martin and the gibbet of Montfaucon. These quarries yielded gypsum plaster stone. This industry soon developed into extensive underground quarries on the slopes of the Buttes-Chaumont and Beauregard hills. The area became a hive of activity. Lime kilns multiplied near the excavations.
Picture the scene: skilled chaufourniers tirelessly tending their kilns. The air thick with the scent of burning gypsum. They would carefully monitor the baking process. Then they’d extract blocks of plaster. The batteurs de plâtre would then crush and powder the cooked plaster. It was backbreaking work. But it was essential to the construction of Paris.
The passage itself originally bore different names: Chemin des Fours-à-Chaux and passage des Carrières. These names reflected the area’s industrial past. The kilns eventually disappeared in 1875. The closure of the nearby Carrières d’Amérique marked the end of an era.
The Passage des Fours à Chaux as we know it today dates back to 1812. That’s when it appeared on Belleville’s cadastre map. Its current name was officially adopted in 1877. It was incorporated into Paris’s road network later. A section that once led to Rue de Meaux was removed during the 1972 redevelopment.
So here we stand in the Passage des Fours à Chaux. A quiet passage today. But it echoes with the sounds of a bygone age. The rhythmic clang of hammers the roar of kilns the bustling activity of a vital industry. These sounds may be silenced now. But their legacy lives on in the very name of this unassuming Parisian passage. Remember this place. Remember its story. Remember the Passage des Fours à Chaux.