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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The house located 3 rue du Change in Beaugency is a hotel built between the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It is distinguished by its typical architecture of the houses of notables, with two wings in return on the posterior facade, a stone screw staircase ending in a half-level wooden, and a wide facade on street with three elevation levels. The building, partially covered with slates and zinc plates, features stylistic elements such as cavet and quarter round ground crosses, as well as a main door in basket handle, characteristic of the late 15th century.

The history of this house is related to its past use as an inn, known as the Cross of Gold, where tradition reports that Henry IV and Gabrielle of Estrées would have stayed. The mutilated tympanum of the facade evokes a radiant cross, reinforcing this symbolic association. Although renovations took place shortly before 1460, most of the architectural elements visible today (door, staircase, reamping) date back to the late 15th century. The house illustrates the prestige of the urban dwellings of notables in Beaugency, comparable to other houses of the same period in the city, such as those on the streets of the Old Fossés or the Corderie.

Classified as a Historic Monument in 1947 for its door, this former hostel embodies the late medieval civil heritage of the Centre-Val de Loire region. Its exact address, 3 rue du Change, and its Insee code (45028) place it precisely in the Loiret department, in the heart of an urban fabric marked by the commercial and aristocratic history of Beaugency.

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