La Guignardière Castle
The castle La Guignardière ( French Château de la Guignardière ) is a Renaissance castle near Avrillé in the heart of the Vendée . Its construction was started by Jean Girard around 1555, but remained unfinished. In the 18th century the building was changed minimally by its owner at the time, but did not undergo any further major redesigns, so that today it is one of the rare Renaissance buildings in western Poitou (Bas-Poitou). A two-storey wing with a corner pavilionand distinctive chimneys as well as a short side wing have been preserved. At the beginning of the 19th century, under the Marquis de Saint-Denis, the palace gardens were redesigned into an English landscape park in the style of the time, in which some Neolithic menhirs can be found.
On December 28, 1978, the La Gignardière castle as was Monument historique under monument protection provided. The owner has been running an amusement and adventure park on the castle grounds since 2001, and the castle building can also be viewed from April to September.
history
Around 1555, Jean Girard, bread master of the French King Henry II , began building a palace in the Renaissance style. A corps de logis was planned with two side wings connecting at right angles and square pavilions at the corner points. The three-winged U-shaped building should enclose a courtyard of honor . When the client was killed in 1563 during the French Wars of Religion , the castle was not yet completed. The construction site was closed and the building remained unfinished.
In the 18th century the property came to her husband, Count Sylvestre François du Chaffault, through the marriage of Marie Françoise Renée Marin . He changed the palace building a little. This is evidenced by his coat of arms and the year 1773 on a window. He also had the Great Pond ( French Grand étang ) excavated south of the castle. As an avowed royalist, after the arrest of Louis XVI. flee the country in the French Revolution . When he later returned to France, his castle had been looted by revolutionaries and many family members shot.
At the beginning of the 19th century, La Guignardière was owned by Louis Barbe Juchereau, the Marquis de Saint-Denis. In the taste of the times, he had the French gardens of the property converted into an English landscape garden. He planted many of the trees in the palace park today . After the Marquis, the Luce de Tremont family owned the complex. The use of the horse stables by the French National Stud falls into their time in the 19th century. When Amedée Luce de Tremont was lord of the castle, the former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau rented a house near the castle in 1920 that belonged to La Guignardière. Amedée felt very honored and decreed that the rental income should benefit a needy family.
The current owner has been running an amusement park on the castle grounds since 2001 and markets the property as the "Castle of Adventurers" ( French Château des aventuriers ). Its historical experience and puzzle paths are under the motto "from prehistory to our days". Around 70,000 visitors come there between April and September every year. Not only the history trails and the castle building are the target of the visitors, but also 23 menhirs that are located on the castle grounds. For over ten years, archaeological excavations have taken place every summer on the domain of the castle in order to investigate the megalithic complexes there. The excavators found the remains of Neolithic housing developments. The oldest traces of human activity found in this area date back to 9784 BC. Chr.
description
architecture
The palace building consists of a two-storey wing with three axes and a corner pavilion with three storeys adjoining it to the south. Both buildings rise on a high basement and have plastered masonry made of field stones . The corner pavilion is adjoined to the northwest by a short, low side wing with only one storey, so that La Guignardière Castle has an L-shaped floor plan overall. However, this is only part of the construction planned and implemented in the 16th century. Some parts were never completed, while other parts fell victim to a fire during World War II . The axes of the part obtained are formed by transverse and double cross-bar windows . One of them stands out from the others through its design. It was modified in the 18th century by adding a frame of pilasters with Ionic capitals and a triangular gable top. Its gable field shows the coat of arms of Count Sylvestre François du Chaffault and the year 1773. Since there is hardly any architectural decoration on the façade, the building makes a simple and austere impression. The floors are closed off by high slate roofs . The roof of the pavilion is measured by an on corbels resting wreath cornice supported. The roof structure, which is up to 12 meters high, is still original and dates from the time it was built. The oak beams that make it up once grew on the castle's domain. The red brick chimneys stand out from the blue-gray of the roofs and the light-colored plastering of the walls. Some of them are multi-story and up to 35 meters high.
To the north of the main building are the extensive farm buildings of the palace complex. They bear witness to the property's agricultural past. Among other things, the horse stables, the groom's house, the oven and the wash house are still preserved today.
inside rooms
All interiors of the palace can be viewed by visitors, from the vaulted cellar to the attic.
Amedée Luce de Tremont ate in the dining room with Georges Clemenceau, who was his guest several times. It could be heated with a large fireplace from the Renaissance period. Left of the fireplace one depends Aubusson - Tapestry from the 17th century on the wall. It shows a scene from the life of Caesar . To the right of the fireplace hangs a 15th century tapestry from Oudenaarde with scenes from the New Testament . Porcelain plates from Choisy-le-Roi and a service from the Nymphenburg porcelain factory are on display on the dresser of the room . An 18th century portrait painting shows Henriette-Louise de Bourbon-Condé , a daughter of King Louis XVI. It was purchased by the Marquis de Saint-Denis at the time.
In the king's bedroom ( French: Chambre du roi ) you can see a wide fireplace with a tapestry hanging on the vent. The room is furnished with a four-poster bed and a painted cupboard, and a Persian rug covers the floor. A five-part screen from the 18th century is also part of the equipment. It has a painting with allegorical motifs.
The billiard room lies in the central axis of the originally planned palace complex. The salon has paneling in the Louis-seize style . Two sofas and a bureau made of mahogany date from the Restoration period , while a small pendulum clock and chest of drawers date from the time of Louis XVI. were made. Next to a portrait of Marshal Jacques-François de Chastenet, there are paintings by Pierre Nicolas Huilliot on the wall.
The Great Salon ( French Grand Salon ) also served as a library. The architecturally defining element is its monumental renaissance fireplace on one of the front sides, which was made to a design by Sebastiano Serlio . A carpet with acanthus and rose motifs takes up a large part of the parquet floor. Special pieces of furniture are an 18th century chest of drawers with marquetry and a Cartel clock with inlays by André-Charles Boulle .
The floors of the castle are connected by a monumental spiral staircase made of granite . The coat of arms of the client Jean Girard and his wife Valentine lʼOrfèvre can be found on the ceiling of the second landing.
Castle Park
La Guignardière Castle is surrounded by an 86 hectare park in the style of an English landscape garden. Menhirs from the Neolithic Age can be found in it in several places. One of the few remaining elements from the French garden that has been replaced at the beginning of the 19th century is the 400-meter-long avenue of lime trees , which leads straight to the castle from the northwest. Until the 18th century it was flanked in the north by a geometrically designed garden area. The Renaissance compartments, no longer preserved today, can be seen on a map of the so-called Trudaine Atlas from the 18th century. It also shows the large pond , which at the time received and drained the water from numerous small canals in the castle park. Today it is one of three large bodies of water on the castle grounds.
There are numerous old trees in the landscaped garden , for example 300-year-old oaks. Siberian elms , bald cypresses , magnolias and sequoias should be mentioned among trees that were planted at the beginning of the 19th century and accordingly reached an age of more than 200 years . In addition, there are fruit trees, shrubs and perennial shrubs in the castle park.
To the south-east of the main building is a French-inspired garden, which takes up the area of a former baroque garden parterre . It consists of a large lawn on which box trees and yew trees have been cut into shape . The garden is surrounded by a path that is strewn with red sand. It also surrounds a woman's statue in ancient style, which was designed by the Vendean sculptor Daniel Moulineau.
French inspired garden
Menhirs on the castle grounds
Station of an adventure trail in the park
literature
- Michel Dillange: Châteaux de Vendée. Nouvelles Éditions Latines, Paris n.d., p. 18.
- Claude Frégnac: Merveilles des châteaux de Bretagne et de Vendée. Hachette, Paris 1970, p. 284.
- Vanessa Yager (Ed.): Ouverts au public. Le guide du patrimoine en France. Editions du Patrimoine, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-85822-683-0 , p. 590.
Web links
- Castle website (English, French, Dutch)
- La Guignardière Castle on chateau-fort-manoir-chateau.eu (French)
- Presentation of the castle park on gralon.net (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Vanessa Yager (Ed.): Ouverts au public. Le guide du patrimoine en France. Editions du Patrimoine, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-85822-683-0 , p. 590.
- ↑ Entry of the castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
- ↑ a b La Guignardière Castle on chateaux-france.fr , accessed on October 16, 2017.
- ^ Martine Martin: Le château de la Guignardiere à Avrille (85). In: La Gazette de Solonnes. February 8, 2013 ( online ).
- ↑ a b c La Guignardière Castle on chateau-fort-manoir-chateau.eu , accessed on October 16, 2017.
- ↑ a b c The palace complex on chateaux-story.com , accessed on October 16, 2017.
- ↑ Internship advertisement (PDF; 199 kB)
- ↑ a b c Stéphane Le Tyrant: La Vendée. Jean-Paul Gisserot, 2005, ISBN 978-2-87747-827-4 , p. 24 ( digitized version ).
- ↑ a b c d e Presentation of the palace gardens on gralon.net , accessed on October 16, 2017.
- ^ Claude Frégnac: Merveilles des châteaux de Bretagne et de Vendée. 1970, p. 284.
- ↑ Le Chateau de la Guignardière ou Chateau des Aventuriers , accessed on October 16, 2017.
- ↑ Information according to the cadastral map available online at geoportail.gouv.fr
Coordinates: 46 ° 28 ′ 29.3 " N , 1 ° 30 ′ 32.8" W.