Maison d'angle à tourelle
MonumentHidden Treasure
Maison d'angle à tourelle, located in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande (Gironde), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Gironde, Nouvelle-Aquitaine
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 44.8422, 0.2179
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00083822
On the corner of a street in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, this 15th-century turreted house hides a royal secret: Henry IV himself is said to have authorised its owner to erect it as a sign of his gratitude. A wrought-iron weather vane still crowns this living testimony to the Gascon Renaissance.
History
In the heart of Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, a medieval bastide town in the Bordeaux region founded in the 13th century, stands one of the region's most unusual residences: a timber-framed corner house whose corbelled polygonal turret tells the story of its close ties with the court of Henri IV. Listed as a Historic Monument since 1955, it is a rare example of surviving medieval and Renaissance civil architecture in a town that was long a Protestant crossroads in the south-west. What makes this residence truly unique is the interweaving of two periods that are visible to the naked eye: a 15th-century main building with exposed beams, with each storey jutting out from the previous one in the purest tradition of Gascon half-timbered construction, and a 16th-century turret added as a royal reward. This superposition is rare and precious: it documents in a single building the architectural continuity between the late Gothic and the nascent Renaissance in Guyenne. The turret, topped with its wrought-iron weathervane - a badge of honour granted by the King himself - is the highlight of the visit. It is both a highly refined decorative element and a symbol of social distinction: in the 16th century, owning a weathervane was a noble privilege. The wooden braces adorning the two facades add a rich graphic effect that contrasts with the usual sobriety of local bourgeois architecture. The house can be viewed from the street, in the tightly woven fabric of the historic centre of Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, whose narrow streets still bear many traces of medieval town planning. The setting is that of a living bastide town, without excessive museification, giving this discovery an authentic and almost intimate character. The attentive traveller will look up to see the details of the roof structure and the silhouette of the turret against the Bordeaux sky.
Architecture
The structure of the house is typical of medieval civil architecture in the south-west of France: a timber-framed building whose successive storeys project from one another, a process known as corbelling, with each floor resting on the beams of the lower storey projecting from the façade. This system, which is both structural and aesthetic, gives the building its recognisable silhouette, flaring slightly upwards. The two façades visible from the street are adorned with wooden crosspieces, a common decorative motif in late Gothic and Renaissance carpentry in the Bordeaux region, which punctuate the cob or masonry infill between the beams. The most remarkable feature is the corner turret, added in the 16th century as part of the royal reward. Polygonal in shape, it was originally entirely corbelled - i.e. free of the ground, supported solely by the beams and corbels of the roof structure - but its base is now embedded in later masonry, partially masking its original technical prowess. The wrought-iron weathervane that crowns it, forged using late-sixteenth-century craft techniques, is remarkably well preserved and is in itself a rare piece of ironwork. The interior of the building, in keeping with the layout of the bastide's middle-class houses, would have been based around a large lower hall used for trade or receptions, with the upper floors reserved for living quarters. The exposed ceiling beams, visible from the facade, suggest a high quality framework, typical of the wealthy patrons who might have been the consuls of a prosperous town like Sainte-Foy-la-Grande at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries.
Related Figures
Henri IV (Henri de Navarre) — roi de France et de Navarre, à l'origine du privilège de la tourelle lors de son séjour de 1584Michel de Montaigne — philosophe et essayiste, visité par Henri IV lors du même séjour de 1584 dans la régionLes consuls de Sainte-Foy-la-Grande (XVIe siècle) — notables anoblis par Henri IV, propriétaires présumés de la maisonAlphonse de Poitiers — fondateur de la bastide de Sainte-Foy-la-Grande en 1255, dont le plan urbain détermine encore le cadre de la maison
Tags
Nearby castles
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Maison d'angle à tourelle located?
Maison d'angle à tourelle is located in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Gironde department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, France.
When was Maison d'angle à tourelle built?
Maison d'angle à tourelle dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Maison d'angle à tourelle open to visitors?
Maison d'angle à tourelle is currently closed to visitors.
