La Motte Castle (Lorrez-le-Bocage-Préaux)

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Château de la Motte in Lorrez

The La Motte Castle ( French Château de la Motte ) is a moated castle in Lorrez-le-Bocage-Préaux , a French commune in the Seine-et-Marne in the region Ile-de-France . It has been under monument protection as Monument historique since May 12, 1975 . The property is privately owned and is not open to visitors - with a few exceptions at special events.

history

In 1480 Aymard de Brisay acquired the Seigneurie La Motte and Lorrez and had a castle built at the current location at the end of the 15th century . Before that, a fortification surrounded by moats had stood there. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the castle was owned by the de Voisinlieu family, who came from the noblesse de robe . The de Chamegnelles and Brayer families are known as owners for the 18th century.

During the French Revolution , the facility was confiscated and then auctioned off as state property. In 1839 it was bought by Amélie Greffulhe, married Countess von Ségur. Together with her husband Paul de Ségur, she had the property repaired and changed. The east wing was enlarged and the previous French garden west of the main building ( Logis ) was converted into an English landscape garden . The couple gave the castle its current appearance. During her time as the castle owner, the French writer Sophie de Ségur , who was a close relative of the two, made a few visits .

Via Amélies and Paul's daughter Juliette, the property passed to her husband's family, Count Roger de La Rochefoucauld . The couple's daughter, Pauline Charlotte Josephine, brought the castle into their marriage to Aumary Victorien Werner de Mérode . Their daughter Marguerite Juliette Charlotte married Bernard Étienne Raymond Galard de Béarn, but the marriage remained childless. Marguerite Juliette Charlotte bequeathed the property to her brother's daughter, Geneviève de Mérode, when she died in 1956/57, who married Hubert de La Rochefoucauld, a great-grandson of Juliette de Ségur and Roger de La Rochefoucauld. Her son Bernard has owned the castle since 2007.

description

The Renaissance- style castle is in the Lorrez district and is surrounded by a landscaped garden. For the two floors of the main building, brick and light house stone were used as building materials , a technique called brique et pierre in French . Some parts of the wall are plastered .

The lodging stands on a rectangular island in the middle of an elongated castle pond, which is accessed from the east and west by arched bridges . On the north and east side of the island, the two castle wings with slate-covered gable roofs are at right angles to each other . The two remaining sides of the castle island of balusters - parapets limited, in this way a kind of courtyard form. The two northern corners of the north wing are marked by massive round towers with conical roofs , while other corners of the building are occupied by slender tourelles . From the interior, the Renaissance ceiling in the Grand Salon ( French Grand Salon ) and a room in the neo-Gothic style are worth mentioning.

In the area of ​​the former outer bailey , a two-story pigeon tower from the 16th century has been preserved. The two floors are clearly separated from each other by a brick cornice . The large round tower has a tiled, conical roof with an open lantern , which is crowned by a weather vane . On the east side it has a round arched window on the upper floor , which is flanked by two pilasters made of brick and has a round arched gable as the upper end . Inside, the numerous clay nesting holes have been preserved in the upper area. Many of them, however, have been closed because the number of pigeons that a landlord was allowed to keep depended on the size of his land. Because much of the land belonging to La Motte Castle was sold piece by piece over time, the number of animals allowed was reduced accordingly. The ground floor used to be used as a dairy .

literature

  • Le Patrimoine des Communes de la Seine-et-Marne . Volume 1. Flohic Editions, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-84234-100-7 , p. 677.
  • Jean de Foville, Auguste Le Sourd: Les châteaux de France. Hachette, Paris 1913, p. 375.
  • Adriana Russo-Van de Lindt: Lorrez-le-Bocage. In: Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos (ed.): Le Guide du Patrimoine. Ile-de-France. Hachette, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-01-016811-9 , pp. 370-371.

Web links

Commons : La Motte Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry of the castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  2. ^ A b c d A. Russo-Van de Lindt: Lorrez-le-Bocage. In: J.-M. Pérouse de Montclos: Le Guide du Patrimoine. Ile-de-France. 1992, p. 371.
  3. ↑ a b J. de Foville, A. Le Sourd: Les châteaux de France. 1913, p. 375.
  4. ^ A b Georges Martin: Histoire et généalogie de la maison de La Rochefoucauld. Self-published, La Ricamarie 1975, p. 93.
  5. ↑ a b Information on the pigeon tower of the castle on topic-topos.com ( memento of the original from October 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed October 2, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / fr.topic-topos.com

Coordinates: 48 ° 14 ′ 5.3 "  N , 2 ° 53 ′ 57.5"  E