Basilica of Saint Benoît-Joseph Labre

Our verdict

Somebody has already done the custodian’s work here. In 2002 this church was a roofless shell with a tree in the nave and an owner who wanted to sell the stone. The roof frame, the roofs and the joinery are new, the wiring is new, the organ plays, and the glass has protective glazing outside.

You are paying for a finished restoration of a church of 610 square metres with its organ and half a hectare of garden. The price is the cost of not spending fifteen years on scaffolding. Take it if you want a church you can open for a concert next spring.

What is wrong with it

• The price reflects a finished restoration.
• The west facade was never completed.
• Running costs for a heated church of 610 square metres are not stated.

The story

1. 1856François Joseph Joanneau arrives as parish priest of Marçay, a village south of Poitiers. He wants a pilgrimage centre to rival Lourdes.
2. 1884Building starts on a church dedicated to Benoît-Joseph Labre, the beggar-pilgrim born at Amettes in 1748, who died in Rome in 1783 and was canonised in 1881. The plans are by the architect Jean-Baptiste Perlat, who is replaced by Alcide Boutaud, the diocesan architect.
3. 1895The nave and the side cloisters are finished. The choir windows by the glass painter Georges Lavergne are in place, and the altar is designed and made by Georges Rouzeau.
4. 1899Joanneau dies and the work stops for good. The bell tower is never built, and the west front stays as a bare wall waiting for it.
5. To 1952Pilgrimages come in numbers. The saint's relics are kept in the church.
6. 1962The last services. Weddings and first communions were still being held that year.
7. 1976The church is formally removed from worship and its furnishings are sent to other churches and convents. The Diocese of Poitiers sells the building to a businessman, who uses it for storage.
8. 1999A storm tears open the roof. Ivy covers the walls and a tree grows in the nave.
9. 2002The owner applies to demolish it and sell the stone. The permit is refused.
10. 2009Pascal Piot buys the ruin and starts clearing it with people from the village.
11. 4 January 2011The whole building is inscrit as a monument historique.
12. 2012Jean-Denis Touzot, a Paris bookseller, buys it. Restoration starts that autumn under the heritage architect Bernard Ruel, with parts of the transept and nave close to collapse.
13. April 2016The basilica reopens to visitors as a centre devoted to the book. Two bells are hung the same year.
14. 19 April 2021A painted wooden statue of the saint, made in the last quarter of the 19th century, is inscrit as a protected object.
15. 2017 to 2023The refurbishment is completed in 2017, the outside stairs in 2019, and an organ is installed in spring 2023.

The listing does not name the village. We identified the building from the details it gives: the title of basilica, the wax effigy of the saint, the architect and the date of the heritage order. The relics are now in the parish church.

Sources: Mérimée notice PA86000043, French Ministry of Culture; Les Amis de saint Benoît Labre: the basilica at Marçay; La basilique de Marçay, the owner's site; Wikipedia (French): Marçay (Vienne); Patrimoine-Environnement on the conversion, 2014; Caractères, October 2018; Patrice Besse listing 856306

What it needs, and what it might cost

Safe and dry

Nothing

Everything on the list

Nothing

Each year after that

€17,000 to €38,000

The cost here is the running cost. A restored church of this size is cheap to own compared with restoring one, and it still wants a five-figure sum every year.

Yearly upkeep, €17,000 to €38,000. Insurance for 610 square metres, property tax, heating the galleries and the sacristy rooms, tuning the organ, a yearly roof and gutter inspection, half a hectare of garden, and a reserve of 5,000 to 10,000 euros.

Grants. As an inscrit building it can receive State grants for future approved works, typically around 20%.

These are our rough estimates and not quotes. Nobody from this site has been inside the building. We measured from the listing, looked at its photographs, applied published French rates for 2025 and 2026, and raised them for scaffolding, height and heritage rules. Figures are for works only, before architect's fees of 10 to 15% and VAT. Rot, structural movement and asbestos do not show in a photograph. How we estimate.

The seller

Private owner. The Diocese of Poitiers sold this church in 1976. It has been private property for fifty years, and the State heritage record lists it as privately owned. The press names the present owner as a Paris bookseller who bought it in 2012. Nothing goes to the Church.

What you may do with it

Light use. Inscrit in full, sacristy included, by order of 4 January 2011. The nave must stay as it is; the agent notes it can now receive a range of projects.

Sacred status

Heritage status

What comes with it

The dead

Getting there

People to call

• Selling agent: Patrice Besse, Paris (reference 856306)
• Heritage officer: The departmental heritage architect (UDAP) for the département

"From the listing" means the seller's agent says so. "Checked by us" means we confirmed it against a public record, linked where possible. "Unknown" is a question to put to the agent before you visit.