Built in 1776 by Marcel Avril − the last manager of the Angers horse academy − the Châteaude Pignerolle represents “Hellenistic perfection”. It was dedicated to Apollo and was designed to look like the Petit Trianon Palace.
In 1789, Marcel Avril was elected chairman of the town assembly and invited the population of Saint Barthelemy to draft the register of grievances at the Château. After the events of July 14th, the Lord of Pignerolle abandoned all his elective powers. As he did not swear an oath of allegiance to the nation, he was imprisoned in Angers until he died. Revolutionaries then occupied the Château.

Pierre Antoine Blancler, a bourgeois, swore an oath of fidelity to the king of France and became the lord of the Châteaufrom 1830 until 1863. He had the pavilions, the railings and the Orangery built, and enclosed the estate with a slate-stone wall, several kilometres long.

After M. Blancler died, the Château de Pignerolle was owned by noble families, and notably by the Viscount Joseph Couderc de Saint-Charmant, who was the mayor of the town from 1909 to 1930. During this period, the town of Saint Barthélémy provided care and assistance to many who were in difficulty, whether they were old, disabled or incurably ill. The Orangery was turned into a hospital.

On October 22nd 1939, the Château was commandeered to host the President of Poland in exile. Angers thus became the official capital of Poland. Léon Noël, the French ambassador in Poland, explained the reasons for choosing the Anjou region as follows:
“Its location, far away from the borders, the fast communications with Paris, the possibility of hosting the Polish president at Pignerolle, the gentle nature of the people there, and the special bond existing between Anjou and Poland, through the history of Princess Hedwige d’Anjou”.

On July 8th 1940, the Germans took possession of Pignerolle. Admiral Dönitz established his communication headquarters there, to communicate with the submarine fleet under his command. Eleven bunkers were built, the biggest one linked to the Château by an underground passage. Until 1942, Dönitz’s supremacy was due to the incredible easiness with which his submarines sank allied ships. Dönitz and the German scientists believed that U-boats were impossible to locate if the messages they sent lasted less than a few seconds… However, in 1940, a French team led by Deloraine, went to the United States to develop a new system to detect submarines instantaneously. Dönitz lost his naval superiority and watched helplessly the defeat of his submarines…

In 1964, the last private owners sold the château to the French army.

In 1971, the Greater Angers Area Council became the Château’s new owner. For 10 years, several ministries were interested in the Château de Pignerolle: the Ministry of Culture, to create a centre for the protection of artistic heritage; the Ministry of Agriculture, to transfer the Angers National Stud to a new location; and the Ministry of the Interior, to establish a centre for civil defence. Finally, only the army still kept 20 ha around the main WW2 blockhouses.

The year 1992 marked a new stage in the history of the Château de Pignerolle. The Château was entirely restored by Angers Agglomération, the new name of the Greater Angers Area Council, to host the Museum of Communication whose collection was put together by Guy Biraud. The latter put his heart and soul into displaying the exhibits in the museum, with the invaluable help of his family, so as to rescue this scientific heritage and encourage the interest of young people in this field. Pignerolle, long abandoned, was coming back to life.

Since July 1st 2002, Angers Agglomération has become the new owner of Guy Biraud’s collection and has entrusted its management to Angers Tourisme, the tourist office of the Greater Angers Area.