The clay pipe, an institution in Saint-Omer

Saint-Omer is known for its expertise in making clay pipes. A look back at an institution more than 400 years old.

Tobacco in Saint-Omer

In 1635 the first tobacco plants were grown in Saint-Omer and the surrounding area. Yet it was another 25 years before the first factory opened. By the end of the eighteenth century the number of factories had risen to 30, employing no fewer than 450 people.

This French tobacco proved hugely popular with enthusiasts, so much so that by-products such as tobacco jars and clay pipes quickly appeared on the market.

Pipe makers from father to son

In Saint-Omer the pipe maker's craft passes from father to son. One of the best-known families remains the Fiolet house. Towards the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, production became industrial. Even the children were quickly put to work, since making the stems was entrusted to them from the age of 10. In all, the Fiolet family produced 80,000 pipes a day.

A second pipe-making house appeared in Saint-Omer: Constant Duméril. Between them the two produced 50 million pipes, shipped all over the world. With the arrival of cigarettes and wooden pipes, however, the Fiolet house was forced to close its doors in 1919.

The First World War all but erased any trace of that glorious period: the factories were bombed, then demolished in the 1960s and 1970s. Only the Fiolet house has survived the years and has today become a school, the école Saint-Bertin. The Chapelle des Pipiers on rue de la Commune-de-Paris is now the Perpignan community centre. A few traces can still be found in rue des Pipiers, where the police station stands.