Château d’Enjaux: A Historic Château and Radio Toulouse Broadcasting Centre
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page11 sections
History
Château d’Enjaux is a château in Saint-Agnan, France, probably built during the fifteenth century. The Marquise de Sévigné, a seventeenth-century French aristocrat and letter writer, mentioned it in one of her letters.
Radio Toulouse at Enjaux
In 1930, the entrepreneurs Léon Kierzkowski and Jacques Trémoulet purchased the château and installed Radio Toulouse there. The facilities included two 120-metre pylons and a cooling basin. Before the Second World War, Radio Toulouse was France’s most powerful private radio station.
When a fire destroyed the station’s premises at Balma in 1933, Château d’Enjaux became its principal broadcasting centre. Its transmission power rose to 60 kW in 1934. Studios were fitted into the château, and artists performed live in the building or in the park, often before an audience. Edith Piaf, Claude Nougaro, and Maurice Chevalier were among the performers who appeared there.
Wartime broadcasting and destruction
Under the Vichy regime, the French government that collaborated with Nazi Germany during much of the Second World War, the transmitter initially relayed government radio broadcasts. Radio Toulouse later resumed broadcasting through Trémoulet’s good relations with Pierre Laval, a leading official of the Vichy government. After German forces reached the region in November 1942, the station continued transmitting music prohibited elsewhere. Kierzkowski was forced to flee because of suspicions about his Jewish origins.
During the liberation of France in 1944, German soldiers occupying the château abandoned it after setting it on fire and destroying the transmitter. The blaze completely devastated the building. The ruined château was later abandoned and used for a time as an agricultural barn.
Efforts to save the château
In November 2017, local entrepreneurs Stephen and Virginie Ferrara bought Château d’Enjaux. Working with the architect Guy Maronese, they planned to save the building from further ruin.
Remains
The estate covers nearly 70 hectares. Its principal building was a rectangular residential block oriented from east to west, rising two storeys and joined on both sides to lower wings. The surviving remains also include a small chapel and the basin built for the radio station’s equipment.
Residential building and towers
Main block and wings
The south, principal facade was framed by two square towers. The château’s outer ends were formed by lower wings, each flanked by a square tower. Most of the roof has disappeared, while the roof over the east wing is the only surviving roof section mentioned. During the building’s broadcasting period, the interior was highly luxurious, with numerous bedrooms, a studio, and a ballroom.
Rear turrets
The rear facade had two round turrets, contrasting with the square towers on the principal facade and at the ends of the wings. These elements belonged to the château’s original architectural arrangement, which was extensively damaged by the 1944 fire.
Radio installations
Transmission pylons
Radio Toulouse installed two pylons, each 120 metres high, at the château. They formed part of the station’s broadcasting facilities and were destroyed with the transmitter during the fire of 1944.
Cooling basin
A basin with a capacity of 400 cubic metres was constructed to cool the valves of the radio equipment. The basin still survives on the estate, providing a physical remnant of Château d’Enjaux’s period as Radio Toulouse’s principal broadcasting centre.
