Why so many French doors have a rim lock
In pre-war apartment buildings and houses, interior doors are made of solid timber — and often too thin to recess a lock case into them. The lock was therefore fitted on the surface: screwed onto the face of the door, fully visible, with its rectangular case and its key protruding.
These doors are still here. They have survived a century, they do not warp, and the timber they are made from is no longer found in a new door. Replacing them with hollow-core panel would be a poor exchange.
What does age, on the other hand, is the hardware: the cracked porcelain knob, the loose lever, the pitted plate. That is what you replace — not the door.
Changing the handle without touching the door or the lock
That is the whole point of this section. With a rim lock, the handle can be removed and replaced without taking off the case, without any new drilling, and without a carpenter.
The case already carries the entire mechanism. All you need is two handles, one per face — our models are sold individually. No function rose, no backplate to add: the lock does the rest.
On the lock case side, the handle mounts directly onto it. On the timber side, it passes through the door leaf; a rose can be added there if a previous fitting has left marks to conceal. You will also find here a few sets supplied with their rose, for those who want a fully dressed finish.
The replacement we see most often: an original porcelain knob, cracked or yellowed, giving way to a brass handle. The door keeps its character, and opening it becomes a single-finger gesture rather than a full-handed one.
The spindle: 6, 7 or 8 mm?
This is the only technical point to check, and the one that causes the most ordering mistakes. The spindle is the metal rod that passes through the lock and transmits the movement of the handle.
- 7 mm — supplied as standard with the handle. This is the French standard for mortice locks, and a good number of our customers fit these models to that type of lock.
- 6 mm — the standard for rim locks. If the case is screwed onto your door, this is almost certainly the size you need. Let us know when ordering: we swap in the 6 mm at no extra charge.
- 8 mm — Switzerland, Belgium and the rest of the European Union. Let us know at the time of ordering. We also check your delivery address: if it is outside France, we make the adjustment without you having to think about it.
Not sure? Measure the spindle in place, or send us a photo of the lock: we will tell you what to order.
Clenche, béquille, handle: are they the same thing?
Yes, more or less — the vocabulary varies by region and generation.
- Clenche is the traditional word, still widely used in eastern France, the north, and Belgium. It refers to the lever you press down.
- Béquille is the trade term: the piece that is operated, as opposed to a fixed knob.
- Door handle is the common term, covering both.
On this page, all of these refer to the same thing: the piece you take hold of to open the door.
Solid brass, made in France
The models in this section are cast and finished in the Vimeu, in Picardy — the historic heartland of French hardware and locksmithing.
Each piece is gravity-cast in a sand mould, machined, silver-brazed rather than glued, then hand-polished. The brass is solid: the weight is immediately noticeable, and that is what sets a cast piece apart from a lightweight alloy shell.
The models bear first names — Juliette, Madeleine, Solange, Angèle, Louise, Mathilde — and are available in around ten finishes, from bright gold to slate, by way of bronze and copper.
What we do not sell
We sell the handles, not the rim lock cases themselves: if your case is beyond repair, you will need to source it elsewhere. However, we do manufacture and sell mortice locks, also known as "à larder" — the type that fits into the thickness of the door leaf.
If your door is a modern one with a mortice lock, browse our full range of interior door handles instead.