A Quick Peek Inside the Pigeon House

 Photos will be provided later. 

A Quick Peek Inside the Pigeon House

One of the more unusual buildings at Château Marouatte is this enormous round stone structure. From the outside, it could easily be mistaken for another defensive tower. In fact, it is the château’s colombier, or dovecote, built to house pigeons.

And it is enormous.

The commune of Grand-Brassac describes Marouatte’s structure as a “colombier monumental,” located within the château’s first polygonal enclosure or lower courtyard.  Another source associated with visits to Marouatte describes it as the second-largest pigeon house in the Périgord Vert. 

But the most remarkable number comes from the Société Historique et Archéologique du Périgord. Its account of a visit to Marouatte specifically describes the pigeonnier as having 3,000 holes. 

I had a quick peek inside, and suddenly that number seems entirely believable.

The interior is extraordinary. The curved walls rise almost to the roof and are covered with row after row of small openings. These are boulins, individual nesting compartments where the pigeons could roost and raise their young. Looking upward, the pattern becomes almost architectural artwork. Squares, rectangles and rounded openings repeat around the circular walls in horizontal bands, creating an enormous geometric mosaic.

Above it all is the beautiful timber structure of the conical roof. The wooden rafters radiate outward like the spokes of a wheel, emphasizing just how large the building really is.

Then there is the unexpected centerpiece.

Suspended from a long chain is an elaborate circular metal structure decorated with fleur-de-lis and Gothic-style ornamentation. It immediately draws your eye against the pale stone and thousands of dark nesting holes. Whatever its precise history or original function within the restored building, it gives the interior an almost theatrical quality. I would not want to identify it more specifically without documentation, since it may be associated with the château’s later restoration rather than the original operation of the pigeonnier.

The exterior gives almost no hint of what waits inside. Its massive circular stone walls, broad projecting ledge and low tiled roof make it look solid and almost fortress-like. Only when you look through the doorway do you discover that the walls are essentially an enormous apartment building for pigeons.

And 3,000 nesting holes?

That makes this little peek inside considerably more impressive than I expected.