Conros Castle

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Main facade of the Conros Castle

The Conros Castle ( French Château de Conros ) is located in the French commune of Arpajon-sur-Cère in the Cantal department of the Auvergne region , about six kilometers south of Aurillac . It has been under monument protection as Monument historique since September 30, 1991 . The castle is privately owned, but can be visited from the beginning of July to mid-September. Admission to the castle park is free, while a fee has to be paid for visiting the castle rooms.

history

The beginnings of the facility go back to the 13th century. It is first mentioned in a document from 1230 and was owned by Astorg III at that time. d'Aurillac. Even in the early days, the castle consisted of a mighty, square donjon and an adjoining lodge with round corner towers. After the owner family died out, the castle and the associated seigneurie came to the Urfé family through the Courcelles family in the 15th century. This sold the castle to Pons de Gontaut-Biron in 1514. In the 16th century, he and his son Jean I had the medieval complex converted into a palace in the Renaissance style. In 1556 it was sold to Rigaud de Saint-Martial (also spelled Rigault) for 25,000  livres . When Huguenot troops under the leadership of Antoine de Puzol took Conros Castle during the Wars of Religion while the lord of the castle was absent, Rigaud's wife Francoise de Puy-de-Val gathered allegiances and recaptured the castle.

The property remained in the hands of the Saint-Martials for seven generations before the d'Humières family inherited it. One of its members, the lord of the castle Robert d'Humières, became known for his translation of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book into French. The current owner of the castle is a granddaughter of Robert and decided in 1971 together with her husband to restore the complex , which had fallen into ruin at the time . The castle park , which was redesigned in the English landscape style in the 19th century, should also be restored. Work on this began in 1972 and lasted for more than ten years. The owner couple then refurnished some of the castle's rooms so that they can be viewed today as part of a small tour. In addition, the couple set up a museum on art and folk traditions of the rural Upper Auvergne in the rooms of the former castle kitchen with exhibits from the 19th and 20th centuries and organized a permanent exhibition on the subject of perfume in the large hall on the upper floor. The lady of the castle now lives in the former gardener's house with her husband.

description

West side of the castle

The castle stands on a rock made of slate and basalt , around which the Cère flows on three sides . The complex includes an English landscape garden from the second half of the 19th century, which - like the building - was restored in the 1970s. It is the only remainder of the former 3500  hectare property that once belonged to the castle. It is planted with trees several hundred years old, including one of the largest beeches in the department .

The castle building consists of an elongated residential building (Logis), the corners of which are marked on the west side by massive round towers . The northern one has machicolations and a conical roof . In the southern area of ​​the east side, the logis is adjoined by a four-storey residential tower (donjon), whose mansard roof with a crowning lantern does not date from the Middle Ages, but was added to the building at a later time. The beams of the three-story residential building carry one of the largest roofs in Cantal. Some elements from the 13th century have been preserved in the basement and ground floor. Remains from the 15th century can be found on the piano nobile . The majority of today's building fabric, however, dates from the 16th century and was changed again in the 17th century. Inside, the knight's hall ( French salle d'armes ) with its vaulted ceiling and the castle chapel from 1230 can be visited. In the chapel there is a Merovingian sarcophagus made of white marble , which was found during excavations in Arpajon-sur-Cère in 1988. Art historically particularly valuable a monumental fireplace from the 15th century in the Guard Room is ( French salle des gardes ), originally from the neighboring Palace Branzac comes. Its decorative frescoes date to the 16th century and were painted by Italian artists who were brought to France by Camille Carracioli, a Neapolitan nobleman and wife of the then lord of the castle.

literature

  • Léonce Bouyssou, André Muzac: Châteaux du Cantal. Nouvelles Éditions Latines , Paris [1969], p. 10.
  • Henriette de Ganay: La Route des Châteaux d'Auvergne. Nouvelles Éditions Latines, Paris [1986], ISBN 2-7233-0311-X , p. 42 ( digitized version ).
  • Château de Conros. In: Massif Central. Le magazine du patrimoine, de l'histoire et de l'art de vivre. Special tape Balades. 2003, ISSN  1265-5651 , pp. 40-41 (digitized p. 40 , p. 41 ).
  • Château de Conros. In: Vieilles Maisons françaises. Patrimoine historique. No. 84, April 1980, ISSN  0049-6316 , p. 23.
  • Le chateau de Conros. In: La Demeure historique. No. 61, 1982, ISSN  0998-5956 , p. 28.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Conros Castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  2. ↑ Louis Sandret: Revue historique, nobiliaire et biographique. Recueil de mémoires and documents. Row 3, Volume 2. Dumoulin, Paris 1877, p. 160 ( digital copy ).
  3. ↑ Vanessa Yager (Ed.): Ouvert au public. Le guide du patrimoine en France . Monum, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-85822-683-0 , p. 89.
  4. ^ A b René Fage: Le chateau de Puy-de-Val. In: Société des lettres, sciences et arts de la Corrèze (ed.): Bulletin de la Société des lettres, sciences et arts de la Corrèze. 1879, ISSN  1148-8557 , p. 472.
  5. ^ Jean-Pierre Babelon: Châteaux de France au siècle de la Renaissance . Flammarion, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-08-012062-X , pp. 780 .
  6. ↑ Château de Conros. In: Massif Central. 2003, p. 40.
  7. ↑ a b Website of the Comité des Parcs et Jardins de France , accessed January 15, 2020.
  8. ↑ Information flyer for castle visitors ( PDF ; 344 kB).


Coordinates: 44 ° 52 ′ 45 "  N , 2 ° 25 ′ 15"  E