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Origin and history

The dovecote of the Château du Sart, located in the Sart-Babylone district in Villeneuve-d'Ascq, dates from 1761. It was built according to the recommendations of Diderot and d'Alembert in their Encyclopedia, thus illustrating the architectural and agricultural techniques of the eighteenth century. With its 1109 bolts (pigeon nests), it bears witness to the symbolic and economic importance of pigeons in the seigneurial areas of the Ancien Régime.

The dovecote is part of a larger ensemble, the castle of Sart, whose origins date back to the thirteenth century with a mansion mentioned in acts of the Abbey of Loos. The present castle, built in 1740 by the Fourmestrals family, was rarely inhabited. At the beginning of the 20th century, the estate was transformed: the park became a golf course in 1910, and the castle housed a clubhouse. During World War I, the Van der Cruisse library in Waziers, housed in the castle, was destroyed by the Germans.

Filed with the additional inventory of historical monuments since 6 December 1988, the pigeon house benefited from a restoration in 2007. Its functional architecture and state of conservation make it a remarkable heritage, linked to the rural and aristocratic history of the Hauts-de-France. Today, it stands in the golf park, recalling the agricultural and seigneurial past of the site.

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