Château de Louvignies

En un regard

Le château en bref

Château de Louvignies stands a few kilometres from Soignies, in the Hainaut. The site is documented as the seat of a lordship as early as 1389. In 1716, Rodrigo de Peralta, governor of Charleroi, had a residence built there, surrounded by moats; it was modernised in 1767 (plinth, tower, and a stucco salon in the eighteenth-century style). By marriage, the estate passed in 1798 to the de Villegas family, who kept it from generation to generation. The building's present appearance is largely the result of nineteenth-century campaigns carried out for Count Léon de Villegas de Saint-Pierre, with the architect Désiré Limbourg and the landscape gardener Louis Fuchs. The family's interiors, furniture and domestic objects have been preserved and offer a testimony to the art of living in the Belle Époque. The château has served as a film location for several productions, including Claude Berri's *Germinal*.