The press

La Tour du Colombier (The dovecote tower) was built on an ancient Saint-Hilaire rampart in the 15th and 16th centuries.This press, comes from the dovecote, a half-timbered building built on the rear part of the Tour du Colombier, now disappeared, which was one of the elements of the eastern ramparts of the city of Rouen in the 15th and 16th centuries. This building was used as a mattress room as well as a boarding school for student nurses before becoming the current boarding school of Rouen University Hospital (for medical students).

It was in 1960 that this press was moved from its original building to the courtyard of Charles Nicolle hospital, first near the pediatrics building, then after the construction of the Mother and Child building, right here, between the pediatrics pavilion and the Derocque pavilion.

A press is a machine used to extract, by pressure, the juice or oil from certain fruit, seeds or vegetables: wine press, oil press. This one is a cider and perry press designed to extract the apple or pear juice needed to make these two drinks.

Here you can see all the elements necessary to make cider:

• A circular stone trough consisting of four pieces and a large wheel (which could be made of wood or stone) that was pulled by a donkey or a horse and used to crush the apples.

• A press and press screws to collect the juice.

• Wooden barrels or vats to receive this juice from the press.

Monitoring for several weeks of the fermentation of the juice in vats or barrels until it turns into alcohol and becomes cider is necessary. It can then be bottled.

This press bears witness to the time when hospitals lived in complete self-sufficiency from the products of their farms and gardens.