Château de Sansac

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

The château de Sansac belonged in the 14th century to a family of the same name, which allied itself around 1396 with a very ancient Charente family: the Prévost de Sansac. The estate then passed to the families Bardonin (mid-17th century) and Montaxier (1793). The château possesses a large main dwelling on two storeys, flanked by two large round towers topped with pepper-pot roofs. Architectural details show that it presents an original central core (15th century), comprising the spiral staircase which was then in a separate tower; its extension, with the addition of the towers, and its rich decoration is probably the work of Louis Prévost, a very close companion-in-arms of François 1er and governor of Angoumois (mid-16th century); the addition of the gallery in a return corner seems slightly later (17th century?). Exceptional mullioned windows with double transom give a fine appearance to the main body, even though it was reduced by one storey during the 17th century. A narrower return wing, truncated in the 19th century, contains on the ground floor a gallery with basket-handle arch arcades. The sculptures, carefully executed and of great freshness, are all of Renaissance date. The interior, remodelled in the 19th century, preserves a monumental flight-over-flight staircase, chimneys of the 16th-17th centuries and an impressive reception room (more than 100 m²) with wall paintings still partially preserved (imitation marble, knights in armour on the chimney and above the doors); its painted ceiling, from the years 1543-57, dismantled during the lowering of the dwelling, was used to rebuild the roof structure in 1745 and many timbers still bear stencilled motifs (scrollwork, stars, monograms). The outbuildings are arranged on the hillside, in two successive terraces bordered by more or less remodelled buildings. The garden below, on the border of the Sonnette, presents a complex hydraulic arrangement created in the 19th century: dam, mill for raising water to the château and numerous basins paved with different sizes. The château de Sansac is an important milestone in Renaissance constructions in the region because of the quality of its decoration, commissioned by an eminent personage of the time.