Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Château de Roche, located in Clairac in the Lot-et-Garonne (New Aquitaine), is a building built in the 1st quarter of the 17th century. The main house, with a rectangular three-level plan, is covered with a long-paned and rumped roof, flanked by a square pavilion and two circular towers. The ensemble, covered with flat tiles, includes commons and an oratory inscribed in historical monuments since 1984. A fountain classified in 2012, transferred from Sauveboeuf Castle in 1927, adorns the park with its superimposed basins and mythological sculptures.

The estate belonged to the Bonnegarde family under the Ancien Régime, and was acquired in the early 19th century by the Delpech family of Clairac. Restoration work was carried out in 1886-1887 for Édouard Delpech, and a stable was built in 1899 by the Bordeaux architect Jean-Michel Alaux. The castle, marked by successive transformations, has a composite aspect combining elements of the sixteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. A funeral enclosure, sheltering the graves of the Sipière and Parmentier families, is still maintained today.

The fountain, a remarkable part of the park, consists of three basins carried by columns, decorated with heads of fauna and sirens. Its central motif depicts a rock surrounded by mythological figures, surmounted by a pinacle. Transferred from Aubas in 1927, it illustrates the heritage exchanges between private estates in the 20th century. The toponym La Roche, attested on the map of Belleyme, confirms the former defensive or seigneurial vocation of the site, typical of the buildings of this historical region of Maine and South-West.

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