Festival of Threshing and Old Trades

The History of the Threshing Festival: 50 Years of Rural Memory

In 1973, a few enthusiasts from Montreverd (then Saint-André-Treize-Voies) had the idea of bringing together the last witnesses of the pre-war agricultural world to revive horse-powered threshing, those great collective days when the whole village mobilized to thresh wheat with steam engines. The OGEC (Organisme de Gestion des Ecoles Catholiques) organized this first edition with a handful of volunteers and a few old steam machines. Fifty years later, the festival has become a must-see event on the Vendée calendar, bringing together over 300 volunteers in period costumes and thousands of visitors every first Sunday in August.

The 50th edition, celebrated in 2025, marked half a century of memory transmission and village solidarity. Each year, the festival meticulously recreates the agricultural gestures and techniques of the early 20th century, a time when mechanization had not yet revolutionized the Vendée countryside. Steam engines powering threshing machines, horses pulling mowers, and straw bales carried by hand evoke a vanished world that the elders recognize with emotion and the younger generations discover with fascination.

Horse-Powered Threshing: The Heart of the Festival

Wheat threshing is the main attraction and the symbolic heart of the festival. Steam engines – those monumental machines that powered the threshers via belts – are restored to working order each year by passionate volunteer mechanics. Sheaves of wheat cut by hand are fed into the threshers, separating the grain from the straw in a din of metal, dust, and steam engine noise. The steam engine, the beating heart of the festival, releases its steam in a white cloud rising towards the August blue sky, a scene worthy of a painting by Jean-François Millet.

Around the threshers, costumed volunteers recreate the entire threshing chain: the binder that unties the sheaves, the straw man who spreads the straw, the bagger who collects the grain in jute sacks, and the machine operator who monitors boiler pressure. Every gesture is authentic, every costume meticulously reproduced from period photographs. Elders who knew the real threshing sessions sometimes weep with emotion seeing these scenes revived.

Old Trades: A Village Alive from the Past

Alongside the threshing, dozens of artisans in period costumes recreate the lost trades of the Vendée bocage. The blacksmith hammers incandescent metal on his anvil, shaping horseshoes and agricultural tools. The wheelwright assembles wooden wheels banded with metal. The saddler cuts and sews leather harnesses for draft horses. The wicker worker weaves wicker into baskets and hampers. The clog maker carves clogs from blocks of wood with gouges. The baker kneads dough and bakes loaves in a wood-fired oven built on-site. The washerwoman beats laundry on the stones of the washhouse.

The cider press, operated by men and women, transforms apples from the orchard into must that children can taste. The walnut oil mill, Singer pedal sewing machines, the artisanal cheese dairy, and the educational farm with its farm animals complete this living village that transports visitors back a century.

Folkloric performances punctuate the day: groups of traditional Vendée dancers in Maraîchine costumes, bagpipe and bombard players, singers of popular hymns, and old bocage troubadours provide the musical dimension of this intangible heritage.

300 Volunteers, A Spirit of Solidarity

The Threshing Festival would be nothing without its 300 volunteers who mobilize each year for weeks of preparation. The members of the OGEC of Montreverd clean and repair the steam engines, order costumes, and organize catering and logistics for an event that attracts thousands of people. This volunteer effort is itself a reflection of the spirit of collective solidarity that characterized the threshing of yesteryear, where the entire hamlet rolled up its sleeves to help the neighbor. The festival thus perpetuates not only the memory of technical gestures but also that of a way of life based on mutual aid and the rural community.