Maison de l’Outil et de la Pensée Ouvrière

Top choice in Troyes


Worn to a sensuous lustre by generations of skilled hands, the 11,000 hand tools on display here – each designed to perform a single, specialised task with exquisite efficiency – bring to life a world of manual skills made obsolete by the Industrial Revolution. The collection is housed in the magnificent Renaissance-style Hôtel de Mauroy, built in 1556. Videos show how the tools were used and what they were used for. A catalogue in English is available at the reception.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Troyes attractions

1. Église St-Pantaléon

0.06 MILES

Faded with age and all the more enigmatic for it, this Renaissance-style, cruciform church, with its barrel-vaulted wood ceiling, is a great place to see…

2. Hôtel de Vauluisant

0.09 MILES

This haunted-looking, Renaissance-style mansion shelters a twinset of unique museums. The Musée de l’Art Champenois is a repository for the evocative…

3. 16th-Century Troyes

0.15 MILES

Half-timbered houses – some with lurching walls and floors that aren’t quite level – line many streets in the old city, rebuilt after a devastating fire…

4. Ruelle des Chats

0.17 MILES

Off rue Champeaux (between Nos 30 and 32), a stroll along tiny ruelle des Chats (Alley of the Cats), as dark and narrow as it was four centuries ago – the…

5. Église Ste-Madeleine

0.23 MILES

Troyes’ oldest and most interesting neighbourhood church has an early Gothic nave and transept and a Renaissance-style choir and tower. The highlights…

6. Basilique St-Urbain

0.29 MILES

Begun in 1262 by the Troyes-born Pope Urban IV, whose father’s shoemaker shop once stood on this spot, this church is exuberantly Gothic both inside and…

7. Monument aux Enfants de l'Aube

0.32 MILES

Erected in 1890, this flag-bedecked memorial, topped by a fleeing woman and child, pays tribute to those who died in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.

8. WWII Memorial

0.32 MILES

This memorial pays homage to those who fought and died in WWII.

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