Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The house on Rue Chevalier in Saint-Bonnet-le-Château is an emblematic 16th century building, classified as a Historic Monument in 1929. Its main façade, on Rue Chevalier, has a partial symmetry: a staircase in semi-out-of-work screws on the left responds to a tower on a column, also half-out-of-work, at the opposite angle. A wrought iron grid, now kept inside to avoid degradation, once protected the lower bay of this turret. The elevation seems to be incomplete, especially on the second floor where the modenature (corinthian columns and entablishment) has not been completed, perhaps due to lack of financial resources. A re-used bay of the early 16th century and five moulded lintel frames, three of which are decorated with lion heads, would fill this space left empty.

Several hypotheses explain this architectural inconsistency: either a fire damaged the upper part of the facade, resulting in a summary reconstruction, or the initial project was never completed. The façade has undergone other major changes: the removal of a two-cross cross on the first floor (replaced by an 18th century bay), the disappearance of a doric column between the arches of the raised ground floor, and the replacement of the original cornice by a genoise in the 18th century. At the back, openings were changed in the 19th century, and a pan-wood aerial space, accessible by a door pierced in the dropreau wall, was added to connect the house to the neighbouring plot.

The interior, divided into two rooms per floor, retains a Renaissance fireplace on the first floor (masked by woodwork), while the other three chimneys date from the eighteenth century. The woodwork of that time, still in place, bears witness to subsequent developments. The house originally belonged to the royal house of Charity, before passing into the hands of the Bouchetal family. Restorations have already taken place (ring of the turret, support of the arcades), and more have been planned since its acquisition by the Office of the H.L.M. of the Loire.

The building illustrates the successive adaptations of a bourgeois or institutional residence, mixing Renaissance elements (tourelle, staircase, fireplace) and modifications of the 18th and 19th centuries (baies, genoese, airspace). Its history also reflects changes in ownership and usage, from a possible charitable vocation to more recent residential or administrative use.

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