Château de Beauvoir

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de Beauvoir stands in the commune of Saint-Pourçain-sur-Besbre, in the Allier department. Its origins are thought to date back to the 12th century, but the present building is essentially the result of a reconstruction at the end of the 15th century, following the destruction of the Hundred Years' War: in the 1360s, an English garrison had made it its base for holding the region to ransom, before it was retaken in 1369 by Duke Louis II of Bourbon after an eleven-day siege. Sold in the 18th century to the financier Sébastien Zamet, the estate was raised to a county by the Gaulmyn family in 1762, an occasion for embellishments and the creation of a garden. In 1890, it was acquired by the industrialist Émile Puzenat (1842-1919), whose descendants remain its owners. The château combines two wings set at right angles, joined by a square watchtower and flanked by round towers at the north-west and south-east corners; a wall-walk survives on the south building. Former moats, now dry, once surrounded the whole. The present French formal garden was designed in 1928 by the landscape gardener Joseph Treyve, during a complete restoration of the buildings and gardens. The château has been listed (inscrit) as a historic monument since 21 March 2005. A private property, it notably served as the setting for the television programme Les Traîtres in 2022.