Pompignan, Tarn-et-Garonne
| Pompignan | |
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| Commune | |
_La_Mairie.jpg)
The town hall of Pompignan
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 Pompignan
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Location within Occitanie region
Pompignan
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| Coordinates: 43°49′04″N 1°18′48″E / 43.8178°N 1.3133°ECoordinates: 43°49′04″N 1°18′48″E / 43.8178°N 1.3133°E | |
| Country | France |
| Region | Occitanie |
| Department | Tarn-et-Garonne |
| Arrondissement | Montauban |
| Canton | Verdun-sur-Garonne |
| Government | |
| • Mayor (2008–2014) | Alain Belloc |
| Area1 | 12.17 km2 (4.70 sq mi) |
| Population (2010)2 | 1,383 |
| • Density | 110/km2 (290/sq mi) |
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) |
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) |
| INSEE/Postal code | 82142 /82170 |
| Elevation | 102–216 m (335–709 ft) (avg. 108 m or 354 ft) |
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1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. 2Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once. |
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1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
Pompignan is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Occitanie region in southern France.
The Chateau de Pompignan, a mid-18th century neoclassical building, sits on a terrace above the village. Its builder, Jean-Jacques Lefranc de Pompignan is renowned as an Enlightenment figure, and he created on the hillside rising up behind the chateau an extensive landscape garden with follies, which has remained largely untouched since the early 19th century.
Today the chateau, in private hands, houses a very large collection of keyboard instruments, and serves as a venue for concerts and musical events. It is also available for rental as an event venue.
Lefranc also built the village a church, within the grounds of the chateau, but it fell into disrepair and was replaced in 1844 with the present church of St Gregory, the old church materials being reused. To adorn his then-new church, Lefranc acquired splendid church furniture from the Jesuits in 1762, when they were compelled to leave Paris, and these objects (marble altars, reliquaries, paintings, gilded monstrances, confessionals ...) are now housed in St Gregory's, where many of the pieces have been listed as historic monuments.
Church of St. Gregory - Facade
Chapelle Saint-Clair
The laundry.
As of January 2011, a decision to route the proposed new TGV line from Bordeaux to Toulouse at the edge of the village and through the grounds of the chateau is being publicly debated. While the building itself and its entrance lodge have been listed as a historic monument since 1951, and classified as such since 1972, the protection does not extend directly to the remainder of the park or its contents.
Some of the villages along the proposed line have formed an association, Unions pour la Sauvegarde des Villages (USV in documents. ~ Associations for Saving the Villages) to promote an alternative route. This would leave the existing line near St Jory, about 10 km south of the point it is now due to make the eastward turn and 100m climb from the valley floor to the plateau above, and rejoin the proposed route just after Pompignan, but above it and out of sight.
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Wikipedia