Crossroads of communication, Vierzon invites you to take a break on the road of your holidays or for family reunions. So only 2 hours from Paris, ready for a discovery time of a stage, a weekend or a stay?
Bathed by the waters of Cher and Yèvre, Vierzon is nestled between the natural regions of Sologne, Berry Champagne and the Cher Valley.
The Berry Canal, witness of industrial activity, invites you to relax.
Industrial heritage is part of the territory's DNA. Vierzon, immortalized by Jacques Brel in his song Vesoul, rhymes with tractors and porcelain.
Former prehistoric station, a flint cutting workshop was found along the Cher to Bellon. The city was probably one of twenty cities destroyed by Vercingetorix during the siege of Avaricum by Caesar. After the conquest, it was certainly a Gallo-Roman oppidum, defense point at the western entrance of Berry, established on a hill, exposed to the south, watching the confluence of Yèvre and Cher and protected by the forest and the Sologne to the north. A Merovingian castle took its place, then the Normans fortified themselves on the feudal mound. They became lords of Vierzon and the city grew within ramparts to the west of the castle. The English (Richard Lionheart in 1196, then the Black Prince) set fire to the city and the castle. Du Guesclin expelled the English in 1370 and returned Vierzon to the French crown. It then became one of the supply centers of the armies of Joan of Arc.
Vierzon suffered the wars of religion, but remained a Catholic. The revolution of 1789 did not bring great tremors, but Vierzon then largely paid its tribute to modern wars. In 1870-71, the vanguard of the Ulhans crossed the city but retreated quickly. If Vierzon was spared from the 1914-18 war, it was hard hit by the 1939-45 war. The dividing line cut the city in two and as a result of violent bombing destroyed the seventh of the city, which once again rose from its ruins.
Until 1779 Vierzon lived from trade and craft, then came the time of industrialization. The iron work marks the beginning of the industrialization of Vierzon. In 1779, the Count of Artois, future Charles X, creates on the edge of the Yèvre a forge with foundry and blast furnaces. It benefits from the old iron and steel know-how of the Berry and the ore conveyed by the Cher and the Berry canal (1830). The presence of refractory clay promotes the birth of a porcelain activity from 1816. The tradition of fire arts continues with the creation of two glassworks in 1860 and 1874, which will exist until 1957.
It is in 1847 that Célestin Gérard settles in Vierzon. His small workshop in front of the station will become the "French Society of Agricultural and Industrial Equipment". A synergy is set up; the reputation of the "French" attracts captains of industry. In the early twentieth century, the capital of agricultural machinery has several firms of threshing machines and locomobiles including Brouhot, Merlin, La Vierzonnaise and the French. These machines are sold all over the world. In 1959, the American company CASE bought SFMAI and the production of public works equipment gradually replaced that of agricultural equipment.
The industrial development of the city is accompanied in the nineteenth century by a rise in workers' demands for better working conditions and remuneration. The workers' movement became very important at the beginning of the Third Republic, particularly under the decisive impulse of Edouard Vaillant who returned to his hometown after an exile more than ten years after his participation in the insurrection of the Commune de Paris in 1871 for which he was sentenced to death in absentia.
