The Corderie Royale - Centre International de la mer is a vast museum complex located in the heart of the maritime Arsenal de Rochefort. The building has been classified as a historic monument since 1967, and currently a candidate for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The Corderie Royal is one of the most important buildings in the arsenal and was one of the first built when the city was founded in 1666. From 1653 to 1660, Jean Colbert du Terron managed Mazarin's affairs in his government of Brouage. He searched the coast for a site to replace this silt port and proposed to his cousin, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to install a new one in Rochefort, at the mouth of the Charente. The architect of the rope factory was François Blondel who started the work in March. Sent to the Antilles, he could not see the result of his plans.

The construction was not simple because of the terrain located on the edge of the Charente river, a ground made up of a layer of mud nearly thirty meters deep, sometimes flooded with about sixty centimeters of water at high tides. Before the building itself was built, it was necessary to raise a few feet and establish a sill plate consisting of a grid of 30 cm section oak pieces 5 feet under the water table.

For nearly two hundred years, the building, which is more than 374 metres long, was used to furnish the rigging (or cordage) of the French Navy. The length of the central building corresponded to the manufacture of a rope of a single cable length. The main wing is bounded by two pavilions. To the north, the one for hemp storage and to the south, the one for tarring the rope. The Corderie used French hemp and hemp from Riga at the Baltic Sea to make ropes, the largest of which, when completed, measured a cable, or about 200 metres long. All the steps were taken care of at the arsenal, including tarring to prevent the ropes from rotting at sea.

In 1867, the rope-makers ceased their activity at the Rochefort site. On 10th September 1926, it was decided to close the Rochefort arsenal and the Corderie was gradually abandoned.

The decline of the Corderie was complete when the German occupying forces leaving the city in August 1944 burned down the monument. The fire, which lasted several days, made the building unusable. Left completely abandoned for more than twenty years, the Corderie and its surroundings were completely overrun ny an abundant vegetation.

In 1964, Admiral Maurice Dupont  oversaw the clean-up of the site by military members, and in 1967, the building was declared a historic monument.

The municipality, now the owner of the site, decided in 1974 under the "Medium City" contract to start work on the rehabilitation of the monumental site. It started in 1976 and was completed in 1988.
Nowadays, the International Sea Centre, sometimes referred to as the Rochefort International Sea Centre, is the museum of the Corderie Royal: it covers an exhibition area of 300 m2 occupying the northern wing of France's longest arsenal. It was opened to the public in 1986 and houses a permanent exhibition room devoted to the history of rope and rope making. It is the city's busiest museum site, receiving more than 50,000 visitors each year.

The Corderie Royale de Rochefort has been recreated manually from various photos and videos from the internet and comes with its own POI.

This mod is not intended for sale or resale.

 

Complementary mods:

-Charente wonders by droide: https://flightsim.to/file/35390/charente-wonders

-Tours du Port de la Rochelle, Pont de Ré and other landmarks: https://flightsim.to/file/22779/tours-du-port-de-la-rochelle-pont-de-r-and-other-landmarks

-Talmont-sur-Gironde: https://flightsim.to/file/20411/talmont-sur-gironde