Château de Montlebeau

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de Montlebeau, also known as the Manoir de Montlebeau, located at the hamlet of Montlebeau in the commune of Vareilles (Creuse), is a manor house built in the second half of the 15th century, during the Hundred Years' War, and first mentioned in 1497 under the Sieur de la Marche, its first known owner; the fief paid homage to the viscounty of Bridiers. Uninhabited since the French Revolution, it was converted into a hunting lodge around 1890 by its owner Hippolyte Sigaud, before falling into complete abandonment from the 1990s onwards. With a layout typical of the castles of the Marche — two rooms per level, two corner towers (north and south) and a spiral staircase tower to the east of the main façade — it originally had three levels fronted by a pond, and partially retains period fireplaces decorated with capitals. The walls and roofs are classified as historic monuments; restoration work (north tower, consolidation) was carried out in the 2010s. Privately owned on enclosed grounds, it is not open to the public for safety reasons.