Château de Bien-Assis

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de Bien-Assis, in Montluçon, is a fortified house built in the last quarter of the 15th century, probably by Colas de Péret (Nicolas Dupeyret), treasurer general of finances to Duke John II of Bourbon. The building consists of a rectangular main block with two rooms per floor, flanked by a square stair tower supplemented by a projecting circular turret. It retains Flamboyant Gothic fireplaces, panelled doors and period ironwork, as well as a barrel-vaulted cellar sheltering a spring. The castle then passed through the hands of several families: the Chasauvert, Mercier and Tardé de La Vaux until the Revolution, then the Fourneau de Crébert, Villatte de Peufeilhoux (1796) and de Montaignac (1953). Expropriated by the town of Montluçon in 1964, it was bought in 1970 by the learned society Les Amis de Montluçon, which then saved it from demolition and undertook its restoration. Sixteenth-century grisaille wall paintings depicting the cycles of Judith and Holofernes and of Susanna and the Elders were uncovered in 2015. The castle has been registered as a historic monument (monument historique inscrit) since 18 March 2016. Today it houses the headquarters of Les Amis de Montluçon, which holds exhibitions there and keeps its archives and library on site.