The Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions

This museum retraces the village of Ainay-le-Vieil on the eve of the 1914 war

In 1914 Ainay-le-Vieil had about 510 inhabitants. It is a very lively village of farmers who work the land in farms or tenant farms, generally for several generations. There are a large number of craftsmen practising skills that have mostly been forgotten, and a "floating" population of boatmen and bargemen work with their barges on the Berry canal.

Created with the collaboration of the Mayor Marie Sartin, the inhabitants of the village and neighbouring villages as well as the Saint-Vic Museum in Saint-Amand-Montrond, our museum is a tribute to this traditional France that has partly disappeared.

Many still remember the craftsmen of Ainay-le-Vieil

Two wheelwrights: Jean Giraudeau and Antoine Billon
Two blacksmiths: Francois Riffault and Camille Boireau
Two carpenters: Albert Desalle and Ernest Jaillet
Five masons: Pierre Pupille, Marcelin Sartain, Jean-Marie Fayard, Jean Beaune, Albert Aucouturier
Two quarrymen: Desrez, Jean Magnard
A carpenter: Henri Bonnichon
Three clog makers: Ernest Jaillet, Émile Blanchonnet, Arthur Larue

And then...

Three tailors, a helmet maker, ten seamstresses
Two grocery shops where everything is sold, "La Rose Amiot" and "La Madeleine Pactat"
A tile and brick factory run by Emile Tixier
A miller: Blaise Delhomme
Three bakers: Francois Delhomme, Jean-Louis Aubailly, Ernest Piteau
Two innkeepers: Alfred Lampérière and Andre Mazet with whom "We stay on foot, on horseback and by car".

And also...

The hurdy-gurdy player Alfred Lampérière and the accordionist Jean-Baptiste Fourdachon who make the whole village dance at every festival.