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Origin and history

Rouffach Presbytery is a historical monument located at 12 rue des Prêtres in the Alsatian commune of Rouffach (High Rhine). This building, built between the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century, illustrates the religious civil architecture of the Renaissance with its redent gables, its sling windows and its spiral silt staircase. An engraved date (1608) on the stairwell partially confirms its construction period. The main residence, of Renaissance style, was originally intended to house the parish presbytery until the French Revolution.

At the Revolution, the presbytery was sold as a national property and transformed into a wine farm by its new private owners. The house body preserves remarkable elements such as a mulled-chambranle entrance door surmounted by an arch in a braid, a studded shield (marteled coats of arms), and crows having supported stone awnings. The north wing, modified in the 18th century, has a broken roof at the top, while an adjacent barn, now collapsed, was complete. The building, which was listed as a historic monument in 2001, is currently unoccupied and threatened with demolition.

The architecture of the presbytery reflects its past use: the ground floor housed stables and a vaulted pantry in the middle of the hangar, while the floor was reserved for living rooms, organized around a large vestibule. The pedestrian door overlooking the garden, with ground chambranles, and the large arched door of the passing body underline its integration into the medieval urban fabric of Rouffach. The picketed corner chains and sled windows, typical of Renaissance Alsace, reinforce its heritage character.

The presbytery of Rouffach is part of the religious and winemaking history of the region. Before the Revolution, it was the centre of parish life, linked to the nearby church. After 1789, his conversion into a wine-growing operation showed the adaptation of church buildings to local agricultural needs, in a region where the vineyard occupied a major economic place. Its recent abandonment and its state of degradation raise the question of its preservation, despite its inclusion as historical monuments.

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