Château du Goutay dans l'Allier

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Origin and history

The château du Goutay, also known as château du Goutet, is a noble house located 1 km northeast of the village of Saint-Menoux, in the department of l'Allier. Its toponym, common in central France, evokes a small source (diminutive of gout). The building adopts an L-shaped plan, with a semi-entered basement (cave and cellar), an elevated ground floor, a floor and attic. A square stone staircase tower with a screw serves the levels from the corner of both wings. The south ground floor houses a room with cabinet and latrines, while the north building retains kitchens (office, oven, vestiges of sink). Upstairs, a bedroom and its cabinet, accessible by separate doors, complete the layout.

Built at the end of the 15th century, the castle could have been built for Remy Guillouët, lawyer and editor of the custom of Bourbonnais (1493), as well as adviser to Anne de France. A homonym, Remy Guillouët (died 1647), the king's first lawyer on the senate floor of Bourbonnais and presidial seat of Moulins, became lord in the 17th century. His daughter Constance then passed on the seigneury by marriage to the Aubery family, also from the millenian judiciary.

The site illustrates the noble residential architecture of the late Middle Ages in Bourbonnais, mixing domestic functions and social status. Its present state reflects the typical arrangements of the seigneurial houses of this time, with a hierarchical spatial organization and attenuated defensive elements, characteristic of the transition to the Renaissance.

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