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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Château des Étourneaux, built in the 15th century in Montluçon (Allier), is a strong house characteristic of bourbonese feudal architecture. Built by Duke John II of Bourbon, it was given in 1484 to one of his illegitimate children. The house, structured on two levels with two rooms per floor, is flanked by a square staircase tower and a turret. The façade is pierced with ground windows, a fire mouth and d'archères, reflecting its defensive use.

In 1490, the property belongs to Hugues Pinelle, master of accounts for the Dukes of Bourbon in Moulins. The estate, described in 1497 as including houses, ditches, dovecotes, ponds and lands, illustrates the extent of the seigneurial property of the time. In the 17th century, the castle passed into the hands of local bourgeois families: Marguerite Pinelle (1647), then Gilbert Alamargot, before being acquired in 1679 by Antoine Urban, lawyer. In 1708 Étienne Soullaud sold it to Gilbert Tardé de Lavaux, clerk at Moulins.

The interior preserves remarkable elements such as two hooded chimneys and a fragment of mural painting on the ground floor. The chapel, initially vaulted, is located south of the building. Partially classified as historical monuments in 1974 (facades, roofs, staircases and chimneys), the castle bears witness to the evolution of the fortified houses into seigneurial residences and then bourgeois. Its rectangular plan and ditches make it a representative example of the civil military architecture of the late Middle Ages in Bourbonnais.

The archival sources (AD Allier) and local studies, such as Yves Galet (1998), specify its land and social history. The strong house, originally designed for defence and ostentation, becomes over the centuries a heritage property transmitted by alliances or sales, reflecting the changes of the nobility and the regional bourgeoisie.

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