Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The log house at 2 Rue Broustet in Clairac is a three-storey building built between the 15th and the first quarter of the 17th century. It occupies a plot at street angles, with a brick base and a wooden structure consisting of vertical poles and fish edge dumps. The facades mix limestone, brick and chevron hurdles, while the rumped roof is covered with hollow tiles. The house retains original interior elements, such as a fireplace, latrines and a sink on the second floor, as well as a corbelled gallery on the south side.

Originally joined to a 15th-century hotel today disappeared, this house would have welcomed personalities like Calvin and Montesquieu. Considered the most beautiful wooden house in the department, it was listed in the Historical Monuments in 1957, then classified in full in 2012. Acquired by the commune, it once housed a small private regional museum. Its architecture reflects the importance of its sponsor, probably a notable local, as evidenced by the quality of its frame and its interior fittings.

The structure combines medieval and Renaissance construction techniques, with door-to-door windows and a gallery on the third floor. The materials used, such as brick and wood, as well as the decorative details (bending olives, mouldings of window supports), underline its high social status. The house thus illustrates the evolution of urban dwellings between the Middle Ages and the modern era, while preserving traces of its past use, such as latrines and sink, rare remains of daily life then.

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