A quarter of listed buildings are in poor condition or at risk, and keeping up with repairs is a bottomless financial pit
When the municipality of Rochegude, France , acquired the 11th-century Chapelle Notre-Dame-des-Aubagnans, the building was at risk of partial collapse after years of neglect. The small town was able to raise initial funds for emergency stabilization, but a full restoration comes with a staggering price tag.The chapel’s whitewashed walls are peeling, its tarp-covered floors spattered with bird droppings, and its centuries-old front door has been stolen.
At the chapel, the €200,000 invested so far is just a start. The roof is leaking, and the floor tiles and tower steps need replacing. Beside the wall, there’s a two-metre-deep pit once inhabited by a religious hermit, filled with centimetre-long thorns – a major potential liability for the town should someone fall in. Not to mention security, landscaping, electrical work.
French organizations like Sites & Monuments, the country’s oldest heritage preservation association, have pegged the annual cost of keeping up the country’s heritage buildings at around €400-million. But between 2011 and 2022, money from the state consistently fell short of that figure by at least a quarter.
It’s not just that the Barbegal aqueduct is in ruins: recent attempts to save it are crumbling, too. The Roman watermill complex near Arles was once considered the greatest concentration of mechanical power in the ancient world. Now, big chunks of modern cement, poured and hardened beneath the arches as makeshift supports, are falling to pieces beneath it.
France Building Heritage Wall Site Risk State Arles Nice Heritage Foundation
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