A contemporary adventure:
THE REASON 
Fort de Seclin is an underrated actor of our regional area. It belongs too 1873 fortifications that surround Lille. Its strategically position since Romans, have border fronts lines and have been used by army up to 80'. It is the one of the area that have keep its whole buildings and moats, that makes the spot a unique place where to appreciate Séré de Rivière architecture and 1900 collections that are in.
Our Goal is, enhance our past by making historical reconstitutions of artillery Horses-drawn.
Actually, during this period France had one of the nicest equestrian tradition in Europe of which apogee was at the very beginning of the XX century further empires expeditions ; its cavalry was the smartest, the most numerous and the more efficient, More over it was lead by without peers.
So here, close to 40 years, we have realised an unrivalled collection in full harmony with the fort for the enjoyment of lovers of fine things, equestrian tradition and architecture.
Thus, the museum redraw the 1870 to 1920 army. The collection is FIRST AND LAST IN North region, with the goal of building up again barracks atmosphere with horses and men in uniforms. Historians et curators experienced, we want to share our passion with the numerous with a preservation and transmission rule.
1996 - THE RESTORATION
Before starting we have faced 3 main matters :
The Fort
- - had no running water, neither electricity and phone line.
- - It was a dangerous place and squatted
- - It was a wild garbage dump
Straight away after investigate the fort, a handful of military reservists joined ranks voluntarily to help at the restoration. That spontaneous action started when French army start cutting off its reserve, and so by the way those men was keeping the same kind of activity and the team atmosphere they used to have.
We start by clear several tons of waste ; plastic, mattress, cars carcasses, barrel of toxic product, house craps… and that's not all.
At the same times and despite our presence on the place, our information signs, the fence and a certain local media coverage, we had some matters with some people that were recalcitrant to the notion of landownership and cleanness.
Before
After
Then came the time of "green land" … The Fort was tightly hug into a deep and gloomy plant-like body that was making so difficult to imagine the place globally. Out of the fortification land was as well tightly packed and disrupt : trees dead, break, streaked with barbed wire and moth-eaten by mushrooms. To complete the picture add bushes, gaps and impressive lowering for such a small area. Moats get the chock-full of the greenness saturation, actually from the gate, trees crown could be flatter.
WHILE IT WAS IT
Original scheme in hand, we build and speed into relief re-modelling campaign. Plains, glacis, demilune have to be reconstruct and we have to fenth all around. This take end at the very end of year 2002.
Finally, the place can welcome the real restoration work :
- Hectares of walls are sandblasted.
- Put back about 20 doors and 72 windows.
- Sidewalks and paved tracks have to be restored too. (Time and pillards action).
- More globally, masonry have to be care. Holes are scattered over façades and dado. Water and time erode joints. With more that a century of being, alteration could speed up without any restoration.
The fort is as you can imagine a financial gap, despite our constructive goal we are not support. We decide, so, to sell our home and live in. An incoherence more, in the middle of a very urban place we are not link to the electric city network. Actually the cost is a little bit more than 21000€ due to some grotesque EDF calculation. Impossible to negotiated anything.
Winter 2002, our squad integrated 2 new member for our future horse-drawn team. Two superb and adorable Postier-bretons. They already take a big part into the fort life.
Time passing on, lassitude, fatherhood and/or removal reduce the team of reservists to 3 men. Anyway, that spontaneous and unexpected support have help us to be nowadays close to the opening.
