Château Bijou

Type CountryDateOn the MapStatusRating
Private building
Private building		France
France		2006-12-27Where is it on the map???Endangered****


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Château Bijou - Click to enlarge!
Site panoramic: cloister, chapel and castle - Click to enlarge!

One More Forgotten Jewel

An exploration lost in the south of France. A real little operetta castle, with its stucco bas-reliefs and cornices and its Italian coloured frescoes...

The castle was originally a simple country house built in 1763 by the architect Dussine; it was completely transformed in the beginning of the XXth century by Mrs Combes, née Saint-Macary. She spent huge sums of money to build the actual castle.

The main highlights are the neogothic chapel in which was an old crucifix from Seville; a reassembled cloister (with, as one can read on the rotten sign: "marble twin columns and capitals from the XIIth and XIIIth centuries style hispano-french art").

Château Bijou - Click to enlarge!
In the chapel - Click to enlarge!

The last known owner of the castle was the general French police mutual insurance company. Only subscribers were allowed to stay in the castle for holidays. The last known allocation of the castle allocation was a mutual insurance company for the French police. Unfortunately after many ups and downs the castle had been abandoned.

The castle was a victim of a fire a few years ago and a "temporary" tin roof has been added to limit the damage, but disfigures the castle, thus imperfectly showing how splendid the castle could have been in the past...

The park, chapel, gardens, ornamental lake and water reservoir have only been listed as historical monuments since 2005. Hopefully this will protect the castle from the random events an abandoned castle might encounter...

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