The La Troche Sandstone Quarry

The Troche quarry is today located in the very heart of the Eugène Chanlon Municipal Park, in Orsay-Palaiseau, in the Lozère (Palaiseau) district.
This is an old sandstone quarry, traces of which can be found on the edge of the Saclay plateau, where a whole plateau of industries is currently located.

All that remains of the quarry today is the working face, 5 meters high and approximately 200 meters long. Today it is only used by rock climbing enthusiasts.

In the lower part, approximately in the center, you can see a Romanesque window... but it actually only dates from 2004!

A little history
The exploitation of this quarry has been documented since 1720.
It was mentioned in Napoleon's land registers in 1809.

At the end of the 19th century, the quarry was owned by the Pigeon family, and employed 25 to 30 workers.
Work was interrupted at harvest time because the quarrymen, very often, were also agricultural workers.
"The production was intended for Paris, brought down twice a day to Lozère station from 1867 by carts pulled by 3 horses, loaded with 120 paving stones (around 2 tonnes), and transferred to wagons using an additional track for goods (1891).”

“Before the railway, it took two days round trip for a cart to reach Paris”

The quarry closed its doors in 1937, and today it is more than a souvenir that can be discovered inside Eugène Chanlon Park.

The stone extracted from this quarry is sandstone. These so-called Fontainebleau sandstone and sand banks were formed in the Quaternary era (Stampian period) around 30 million years ago.