The washhouse dates of a time when women did not yet have mechanical tools to manage their household. Following their wish the washhouses had been transferred from the borders of the rivers to the village centre for reasons of accessibility. Here, the especially created basins were connected directly to underground springs. The municipality directed the use of this public tool and a manager was named to keep and clean the basins.
The old basins in the “rue Basse” in Rameldange were covered by a roof and surrounded by three walls.
The front side of the little washhouse, made by big ashlars, is open and allows a direct access to the main basin, which is divided into four rectangular small basins, embedded into the ground floor of the building.
A wooden entablature supports the semi dark room, getting supplementary light from the door and the trefoil window.
Women in the washing house.
When a brook was close to the village, the laundry was done there.
In these times the washing process had been very hard work. Before the linen could be brought to the river for rinsing, it had to be soaped, brushed, beaten and scrubbed at home. This painful procedure, common among the poor households, had later been replaced by the “Bauchen” procedure, invented by the rich.This process consisted in putting the boiled linen on the top of each other so that it could be pre-washed by a shower of hot detergent. The next laundry step as well as the rinsing could then be done at the “Wäschbuer” (washhouse). Here the linen was spread into the basins and pushed under water with wooden sticks. The very dirty pieces had to be treated afterwards with the wooden washboard, the scrubber or the wooden beating stick. The rinsing process took place in another basin. After an intense wringing, the linen could be brought home for drying. The white linen was spread in the meadow in order to be bleached.