Château de Bardine

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château du Haut-Tirac, better known as the Château de Bardine, stands on a hillside overlooking the Taillon valley, in Lorignac. Probably built in the late 12th or early 13th century, the fief of Haut-Tirac, held from the Bishop of Saintes, is mentioned at the end of the 13th century; around 1450 it belonged to the Disant family, then, from 1554, to Gabriel Gentilz, councillor at the Parlement of Bordeaux, who between 1575 and 1580 undertook a major restructuring of the eastern part, entrusted to the mason Pierre Boysson and then to his son Joseph. In 1599, Jehanne Gentilz married Jehan Martin, whose descendants have kept the château to this day; François-Charles-Hyacinthe de Martin, Count of Marcellus, died there in 1789 from the effects of a duel. The small, irregular oblong enclosure, flanked by four quadrangular towers, housed Gentilz's new residence, with two main rooms served by a vestibule with a staircase, lit by mullioned windows and topped by a crenellated parapet. Left abandoned in the middle of a field since the 19th century, the main building, now in ruins and razed down to first-floor level, retains a large part of its medieval enclosure wall; the moats have been filled in. Privately owned, it enjoys no protection as a historic monument.