The Departmental Asylum

Politicians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries became aware that begging was a problem that repression alone could not eradicate. The general councillors of our department imagined a place of welcome for the elderly, the disabled, the terminally ill, the "abnormal" children which led to the opening in 1910 of the "departmental asylum in Grugny".

The Council bought the Fol Enfant estate from Count Legonidec de Penlan in 1905, to create an "asylum for old and incurable people, a begging depot".  Much larger areas were required for the project that various negotiations and expropriations made it possible to obtain.

The building began in 1906-1907. First of all, the roads had to be built and the park redeveloped. The project drawn up in 1899 by Mr. Lefort, an architect, evolved to become less repressive. After the laws of 1905, it was assistance and benevolence that had to prevail. The work provided by beggars, disabled children and the elderly who were still able-bodied would allow them to be reintegrated and to balance the establishment's budget.

From 1906 to 1910, the project was gigantic. First, a brickmaking yard was built not far from the hall. The carpenters would use the wood from the estate. Everything necessary for a life almost self-sufficient was built. The begging depots (separate men's and women's wards), the children's hospice, the old people's hospice, the dormitories, the workshops (clog makers, shoemakers, saddlers, carpenters, locksmiths, etc.), the bakery, the butcher's shop, the press, the barn, the pigsty, the cellar, the kitchens, the refectories, the laundry, the linen room, the school, the farm, the cider house, the vegetable gardens, the infirmary, etc. and the large administrative premises made this establishment a kind of "city within the city".

Modernism pervaded the site everywhere: a steam engine to run the workshops (with a chimney to evacuate the fumes), running water from a well, central heating.

The establishment was inaugurated on May 6, 1910. But other work would complete these first constructions.

The population of the village increased from 188 inhabitants in 1901 to 657 in 1911 and 907 in 1921.

The opening of the Clères-Gueures train line in 1913 considerably facilitated trade, and especially the supply of building materials for the establishment.