Souvigny: final visits to Château de la Matray before the end of the season

ALLIER · Souvigny

Château de la Matray

The Château de la Matray is located in the commune of Souvigny, in the Allier department. The seigneury of la Materée is recorded as early as 1386, when Jean Seguin, secretary and treasurer to Duke Louis II of Bourbon, obtained permission to fortify his residence after an earlier building had been destroyed during the conflicts of the Hundred Years' War. The present building, mainly from the 15th and 16th centuries, replaced this former fortified house and was itself altered in the 17th century. The estate changed hands several times: it passed to Jean Boudet in 1599, then to Jean Breuyllet, to Jean-Jacques Béraud in 1738 and to Louis-Pierre-François-Philippe de La Mothe in 1767; it now belongs to the de Vaulchier family. The building consists of a rectangular main block of two storeys plus attic, complemented by two return wings forming a horseshoe plan around an inner courtyard. A square corner tower houses a spiral staircase serving a chapel, dated to the late 15th or early 16th century. The whole is surrounded by water-filled moats crossed by a bridge, and retains the remains of a 17th-century enclosure wall as well as a square dovecote with corbels and moulded brackets. The façades and roofs, the chapel, the spiral staircase, the courtyard paving, the moats with their bridge and the pillars of the main gateway have been listed (inscrit) as historic monuments since 16 April 1975. The château, which became a working farm in the 19th century, has retained its authentic character and can be visited by appointment.