Le Breuil Castle (Bonneuil)
The Le Breuil castle (fr. Château du Breuil ) is a beginning of the 16th century built and completely preserved moated castle in the field of community Bonneuil southwest of Cognac in the French department of Charente . It has been registered as a Monument historique since June 23, 1952 . It is privately owned and is not open to the public. The farm buildings of the winery belonging to the castle are located immediately southwest of the castle building.
Geographical location
The castle is located about 1.2 km west-southwest of the center of the municipality about 100 m south of Route départementale 699 , which runs from Jonzac and Archiac in the southwest via Châteauneuf-sur-Charente to Angoulême in the northeast and crosses the district of Bonneuil. A small stream, the Collinaud, runs south of the road here. Immediately to the east of the castle, it is dammed up to form a pond, then feeds the walled moat surrounding the castle and then flows further to the southwest to its confluence with the Né , a tributary of the Charente .
history
The castle was probably built around 1520 by Philippe d'Ingrandes, who lived there from 1508 to 1532. Through inheritance and several marriages, the property finally came to the Leroy de Lenchères family, who were wealthy and well-ramified in the area and owned it from 1729 to 1919. François Leroy de Lenchères had the building extended to the southwest and the windows of the south facade redesigned and in 1769 he moved from La Borde near Saint-Amant de Bonnieure to Le Breuil Castle. It remained in the possession of his descendants until 1919. Today it belongs to a winery.
architecture
Although the castle has the appearance of a building from the 15th century, all stylistic elements come from the Renaissance . The two-story north facade is dominated by two round facade towers with conical roofs , one in the northeast corner with a window on the upper floor and a dwelling above, the other in the middle with a window on both floors and a dwelling. In the north-east wing of the castle between the two towers there are four large and one slightly smaller lattice windows as well as two dwelling houses in the attic. The part of the castle, which extends from the central tower to the southwest and is much more unadorned on its north side, was obviously only built after the north-east part and the two towers had been completed; its north facade has only four small and very simple windows and no dwelling. The portholes of the two towers and the attic in the north-east wing are richly decorated. a. with renaissance rocailles .
The windows and the two dormitories on the five-axis south side facing the terrace and courtyard, including the south-western part that was added later, are richly designed, probably enlarged and decorated in the 18th century. At the northwest corner of the building there is a hexagonal stair tower , richly decorated on the terrace side on its windows and the hatch , whose conical roof towers above the ridge of the castle and the roofs of the other two towers. On its west side there is a two-storey, semicircular bay window with its own conical roof, which contains a spiral staircase to the roof space of the tower. A two-storey farm wing is attached to the stair tower at a right angle to the south over the moat.
The verges on both gables of the slated gable roof are decorated by gable cornices with rows of hooks.
Along the south side of the lock extends a narrow, about 5 m wide and of a stone balustrade comprised terrace between the lock and the brick moat; a single arched stone bridge leads over the moat to the farm yard.
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c Entry of the castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French), accessed on January 16, 2016.
- ^ Castle Le Breuil, near Châteaux de France
- ↑ http://jm.ouvrard.pagesperso-orange.fr/armor/fami/b/babin.htm
Web links
- Entry of the castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
- Private website with many photos, including historical ones
Coordinates: 45 ° 34 ′ 23.5 " N , 0 ° 9 ′ 12.6" W.