Château Magne: A Second Empire Château in Trélissac
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.9
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page6 sections
History
Château Magne is a historic château in Trélissac, France, built between 1864 and 1869 for Alfred Magne in the Second Empire style, the architectural period associated with Napoleon III’s French imperial rule from 1852 to 1870. The Parisian architect Bertelin prepared its plans. The building formed part of Alfred Magne’s wider reshaping of the village and later passed through charitable, hospital, and residential uses.
A new center for Trélissac
During the nineteenth century, Trélissac’s communal buildings occupied a damp area beside the Isle and required frequent, expensive repairs. Alfred Magne proposed and financed a new village center north of the national road. The project brought together a church, presbytery, town hall, school, ancillary buildings, and gardens.
Once the new center had been completed, Magne acquired the former communal buildings and the adjoining land along the Isle. He then commissioned the château on this property, creating a private residence beside the area that had previously housed the commune’s buildings.
From hospice to private residence
Napoléon Magne, Alfred Magne’s son, left the château to the city of Périgueux on the condition that it become a hospice for elderly people. In the 1950s, Périgueux Hospital established a hospice for people without means in the building, with assistance from nuns of the Sainte-Marthe congregation.
A private individual bought Château Magne in 2001. A property developer acquired it in 2005 and converted it into 24 apartments with two to four rooms, most of which were later rented. The château entered France’s Monuments historiques register, the national system for protecting important historic buildings and sites, on 29 November 2004. It remains privately owned and used as a residential property.
Remains
Château Magne is built of brick and stone in the Second Empire style, with elements inspired by Renaissance architecture. The main residence forms a tall rectangular block oriented from northeast to southwest. Two pavilions frame the building at its northern and western ends, and each pavilion includes a polygonal tower.
The main building
The principal block and its flanking pavilions form the château’s surviving architectural composition. Their combination of brick, stone, towers, and Renaissance-inspired details gives the residence its characteristic nineteenth-century appearance. The building now contains the apartments created during its residential conversion.
The park and surrounding remains
The château stands within an extensive park that also contains the old, or small, Château de Trélissac and the ruins of the commune’s former Gothic church. The property lies north of the Isle and the greenway beside the river, while the main village center is approximately 600 metres to the northeast and Périgueux is about four kilometres to the west.
Nearby sites
