Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The so-called Queen Margot House, located in Besse-et-Saint-Anastaise in Puy-de-Dôme, is an emblematic 15th-century civil building. Ranked a Historic Monument in 1926, it is characterized by preserved medieval architecture, including a four-storey main staircase. The latter, of great technical complexity, has a hexagonal ribbed vault with circular liernes, typical of the flamboyant Gothic. The staircase turret, protruding on the street, features an ogival door decorated with prismatic mouldings and a sculpted tympanum of a shield, showing the care taken to the exterior decoration.

Inside, the house preserves remarkable architectural elements, such as a small corbelled secondary staircase serving the attic, and 15th-century windows, some of which still keep their hinges. The ground floor, once occupied by arches in basket handles (partly destroyed for a modern front), suggests an initial commercial vocation. These details, combined with the adorned facade and ogival doors, illustrate the importance of this building in the medieval urban fabric of Besse-et-Saint-Anastaise.

The inscription in the inventory of Historic Monuments in 1926 highlights the heritage value of this house, often associated – by local tradition – with Marguerite de Valois, known as "Queen Margot", although this link is not explicitly confirmed by architectural sources. Its present address, 11 rue des Boucheries, and its state of conservation make it a rare testimony of bourgeois habitation in the late Middle Ages.

Future

Queen Margot's house is now the ski museum.

External links