En un regard
Le château en bref
The Château de Montaigut-le-Blanc, at the place called Le Grand Montaigut (Creuse), succeeds an earlier wooden fortified site of the 11th century built on a motte rising to 505 metres, a position overlooking the Gartempe valley. The present château, of which the walls survive, was built in 1357 and then remodelled in the 15th century; it served as a garrison seat, a stopping place for merchants and a refuge for peasants, and was notably occupied by Jean de Brachet and then by Georges de Villequier, governor of La Marche. A report of 1732 already describes it as largely uninhabitable, and in 1866 Count Pierre de Cessac called it a mere stone quarry. Listed as a historic monument since 1926, it was bought in 1968 by the association Amis du château, which began its restoration, and then in 1989 by a private couple who financed the renovations despite a refusal of State aid. Quadrangular in plan, flanked by four turrets rising to 20 metres and surrounded by a circular dry moat, the château, whose north-west part (the lord's residence) has been restored, is still inhabited today on an estate reduced to about 1.3 hectares.