Eure: after the spectacular fire at the Grand Château de Serquigny, question time

2024-01-01 07:50:58

“It’s a great loss for the town, we had tourist and hotel projects,” laments Frédéric Delamare. The mayor of Serquigny watches helplessly as the peephole that adorned the facade collapses inside the building. The Grand Serquigny, built at the end of the 17th century on the foundations of a medieval castle, was largely destroyed this Sunday, December 31 in a fire. Warned by an ambulance at 6:30 a.m., the 80 firefighters deployed on site were unable to save the roof and floors of the building.

“The bridge which crosses the moat is in very poor condition and it would not have supported the passage of intervention vehicles,” said the prefect of Eure, Simon Babre, at a press briefing on Sunday afternoon. Due to lack of access, firefighters moved forward with hand hoses to control the fire. “Two facades have been preserved, therefore the facade listed as historic monuments, but it is always possible that they will collapse,” he continued.

A historic site deliberately left abandoned

“If we had had a ladder, we could have made up for the fire and perhaps preserved the east of the building,” detailed Colonel Emmanuel Ducouret, director of SDIS 27. For now, the lances continue to cool the castle from which fumaroles still escape regularly, reinforced by the strong gusts of wind which sweep the department today.

Although the damage to the building was considerable, emergency services did not report any casualties. “Over the next 48 hours, as the disaster is completely extinguished, in-depth reconnaissance of the site will take place to finalize the removal of doubt regarding the human toll,” specifies the prefecture in a press release.

Investigators will also be responsible for determining the causes of the fire. Although abandoned for several years and at the heart of a complicated administrative battle to identify all of the approximately 40 owners of the building, “the castle was illegally squatted”, specifies a source present on site.

According to the Eure prefecture, the place was “regularly visited” but “no reports of installations suggesting that people may have lived there” were made to the police or the prefecture.

Due to its roof and its facade, made of bricks and decorated with moldings, these cut stones which surround the bricks, Grand Serquigny was listed as a Historic Monument. Present on site, France Poulain, chief architect of the Departmental Unit of Architecture and Heritage (UDAP) of the Eure des Bâtiments de France, indicated that the disaster had been reported to the Ministry of Culture. “But before considering any reconstruction, we will have to determine who the owners are,” recalls Frédéric Delamare, who already mentions the need for a call for donations when it is necessary to finance the restoration of the castle.