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Origin and history

The Lachaux mansion is a seigneurial residence built in 1660 in Carlat, Cantal, for Jean Benech, notary, and his wife Marguerite Verdier, as attests the inscription on the lintel of the entrance door. This small rectangular castle, flanked by two round towers and a wooden dovecote, illustrates 17th-century civil architecture in Haute-Auvergne. Its spatial organization includes a main house with a broken roof, a posterior tower with vaulted soot, as well as agricultural outbuildings (granges, stables, pigsty) added or modified in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The mansion has retained its external authenticity since its construction, without major transformation. The house dates from 1779 on a girouette, suggesting further developments, while barns-stables, visible on the cadastre of 1811, date back to the 18th century. Pigrie dates back to the second half of the 19th century. Ranked a Historic Monument in 1986 for its facades and roofs, the mansion bears witness to the affluent rural life in Auvergne, mixing residential, agricultural and symbolic functions (pigeon, seigneurial right).

Although not open to visit, the Lachaux Manor House remains a remarkable example of provincial noble habitat associated with agricultural activities. Its elongated plan, its corner towers and its dovecot in corbellation reflect both residual defensive concerns and a desire for ostentation characteristic of the rural elites of the Old Regime. Historical sources, such as the General Inventory of Monuments (1984) and the cadastral archives, confirm its heritage importance in the landscape of the castles of Haute-Auvergne.

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