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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The canonial house of Saint-Pierre-le-Puellier is a mansion located in the Old Towers, 21 rue de la Paix. Built between the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century, it illustrates medieval civil architecture with its half-timbered facades and Gothic elements, such as the arched door under a third-point dump arch. Its spatial organization, with two perpendicular building bodies and an open gallery on the ground floor, reflects the domestic and community uses of the period.

Probably built during the expansion of the cloister of the church of Saint-Pierre-le-Puellier in 1416, this house bears witness to the close links between the canonial chapter and the tourist town planning. Its wooden staircase with a right ramp and its support posts on the floor reveal typical 15th century constructive techniques, although the original building of the 13th or 14th century has been profoundly redesigned. The facades and roofs, protected since 1946, make it a major architectural heritage of the Centre-Val de Loire region.

The monument is part of an urban context marked by ecclesiastical influence: the canons, members of the chapter, resided or held administrative functions there. The house, with its accessible courtyard and its mixed structure (stone and wood), embodies the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a period of prosperity for Tours, then capital of the kings of France in the Loire Valley. Its listing as historic monuments underscores its heritage and historical value.

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