A 19th-century Protestant church to be restored in 5,500m² of wooded
grounds, 40 minutes from Angoulême in France’s Charente department
grounds, 40 minutes from Angoulême in France’s Charente department
,
CHARENTE
poitou-charentes
FR
Location
The property lies north of the town of La Rochefoucauld, to the west of central France in the tree-lined meadows of the country’s Charente department. It looks down at a secondary road and stands a few hundred metres up a slope from a village. The undulating countryside is a beautiful patchwork of fields and woods.
A village 10 minutes away by car offers all essential shops. The cities of Angoulême and Limoges are respectively 40 minutes and 1 hour away by car. The A10 motorway is 20 minutes from the property. On this motorway, you can get to Paris in 4 hours and 30 minutes.
Description
The edifice is rectangular. It was built of dressed white limestone in the 19th century and is capped with a slate gable roof. The axis of its rectangular form runs from north-east to south-west. A terrace extends at the foot of the church’s tall facade. A bell tower with a pyramidal roof crowns this facade. The facade reaches up to the sky and is punctuated with windows from one level to the next. Its entrance doorway is flanked with two pilasters and capped with a fanlight beneath a pointed arch. Above this doorway, a large bull’s-eye window fills the first floor with natural light. And above this bull’s-eye window there is a sculpture of a Bible, opened at pages in Hebrew. Further up, the bell tower rise above the roofs. There is a pointed-arch opening on each face of the tower. On both sides of the main entrance, beyond each straight buttress stretching up to the base of the bell tower, there is a similar pointed-arch window. Along the church’s side walls, there are two bays of arched windows and doorways spanning two levels. A semi-circular section completes the edifice at the back.
An overgrown driveway needs to be cleared to open the way to the property. The surrounding woods are thick and have become wild.
An overgrown driveway needs to be cleared to open the way to the property. The surrounding woods are thick and have become wild.
The church
The ground floor
There is a main entrance door into the church from the terrace. Arched windows and doorways were also recently added along each side of the edifice to develop the ground floor. A semi-circular section marks the end opposite the main entrance. Inside, the entrance area includes two stone pillars that support the bell tower. To the left, there is a quarter-turn staircase that leads up to the first floor. The concrete floor is exposed and the underside of the slabs used to make the first floor forms the ceiling.
The upstairs
Originally, only two highly positioned arched windows filled the whole interior with natural light. Today, these windows are those of the first floor, which is ready to be converted. The flooring is a simple concrete surface. The underside of the loft’s floorboards above can be seen throughout this vast space. At the end where the main entrance leads inside below, you can see the bell tower’s supporting pillars rising up here.
Our opinion
Every property has its unique story. The last chapter in this church’s story is charming. A teacher bought the church to live there in memory of her family, who regularly attended the church. This teacher was sadly transferred to another school when she had just started the renovation work. Yet she left many ideas behind that we can still see today, like the concrete flooring upstairs, which suggests a desire to create an open-plan space. Since then, this fine edifice has become overgrown, drowned in a mass of wild vegetation. It is patiently waiting for a new owner to breathe new life into it.
130 000 €
Fees at the Vendor’s expense
Reference 327241
| Land registry surface area | 5539 m2 |
| Main building surface area | 200 m2 |
| Number of bedrooms | 3 |
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NB: The above information is not only the result of our visit to the property; it is also based on information provided by the current owner. It is by no means comprehensive or strictly accurate especially where surface areas and construction dates are concerned. We cannot, therefore, be held liable for any misrepresentation.
