Château de Magny-en-Bessin

The Château de Magny-en-Bessin (Castle of Magny-en-Bessin) is a classical-style French château located in the commune of Magny-en-Bessin, in the Calvados department. The estate belonged at the end of the 17th century to a prominent figure, Nicolas-Joseph Foucault, and gradually expanded to cover three-quarters of the current commune by the end of the century. The château was built in the 18th century on older foundations that cannot be precisely dated due to the current state of knowledge, and no visible elevations of the original structure remain. The château changed owners at the beginning of the 19th century but experienced a period of stability and local prominence. A new sale brought particularly brutal mutilations immediately after the end of World War II. It was listed as a historic monument by decree on 31 May 1946. Transformed into a textile factory for a quarter of a century and then abandoned starting in the 1970s, it was partially destroyed by two successive fires in March 2016. The château was selected by Stéphane Bern, head of the Mission for the Identification and Preservation of Endangered Heritage (Mission d'identification et de sauvegarde du patrimoine en péril), to receive emergency financial aid from the heritage lottery twice, during the draws on 15 and 16 September 2018, on the occasion of European Heritage Days, and again in 2021.