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Key figures

Origin and history

The Château de La Bourélie, located in Brens in the Tarn, is built in the 17th century for the family of Combettes, a rich Albige family. Its origin dates back to 1632, when David de Combettes, a lawyer and first consul of Gaillac, acquired the farmhouse of Laboureilhe for 12,000 pounds. His son, Guillaume de Combettes, replaced the agricultural building with a small castle in 1647, inspired by Parisian gardens, with fountains and water jets in the north. The descendants obtained prestigious titles in the 18th century, as treasurer of the king or adviser to the Toulouse Parliament.

In 1763 Antoine de Combettes erected a seigneurial chapel, blessed in 1764 under the name of Saint-Charles. The family then adopted the name Combettes-Labourélie. Around 1790, François Louis de Combettes-Labourélie began a reconstruction, but he was guillotined in 1794 during the Revolution. His widow, Raymonde Jeanne de Joulia, completed the work in 1808. Their son, Pierre-Casimir, and then his grandson François-Raymond-Louis, renovated the estate between 1840 and 1882, adding mill, forge and other outbuildings.

Sold in 1886 to Alexandre Bos, the castle became the heart of a 200-hectare farm, including farmhouses, orange, cellar and dovecote. Today, the castle is at risk, its roof and floors collapsed, despite the partial preservation of the estate. A fire in 2012 damaged a hangar without reaching the main building. Its architecture, made of brick and pebbles, reflects the transformations from the 17th to the 19th centuries, with facades decorated with pilasters and a triangular pediment at the rear.

The first castle, built in 1647, had a crenellated tower, a tower to the east and a turret with a staircase to the wall. The present castle, rectangular and three-storey, has arcades on the ground floor and rectangular bays on the upper floors. The north facade, opening onto the gardens, is the most decorated, with sandstone ionic pilasters and a pediment formerly decorated with family coat of arms. The outbuildings, organized around a courtyard, include employee housing, barns and a bell tower chapel.

The estate illustrates the evolution of a rural seigneury as a modern farm, while maintaining traces of its aristocratic past. The Combettes-Labourélie, despite revolutionary upheavals, preserved their heritage until its sale in 1886. Today, the site bears witness to both the past greatness and contemporary challenges of preserving the rural heritage in Occitanie.

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