Neuvicq Castle

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Neuvicq Castle, view from the southwest

The Neuvicq Castle ( French Château de Neuvicq ) is a country castle in the French commune of Neuvicq-le-Château in the Charente-Maritime department and thus on the edge of the Saintonge in the heart of the Fins Bois wine-growing region around 19 kilometers northeast of Cognac . The small plant was built by the family La Rocheandry at the turn of the 15th and 16th century on the site of a castle built in the 12th century. Expanded and defended in the 17th century, the building has been used as the town hall since 1904. He is since 14 September 1912 as a classified monument historique under monument protection .

history

There is evidence of a moth in Neuvicq as early as the beginning of the 12th century , which was named fortalicum de Novo Vico in a document from around 1266 . The first members of a local noble family known by name in the 13th century were Guillaume de Neuvicq and his son Foulques, who were also vassals of the Bishop of Angoulême . Her family died in the 14th century, and in 1398 was then a member of the house La Rochefoucauld with the castle and Seigneurie Neuvicq invested . At that time, the complex was in ruins because English troops had captured it in the Hundred Years War and destroyed it in whole or in part before they withdrew again in 1375.

Around 1420 the castle came to the La Rocheandry family (also spelled Larocheandry). In 1452, Jean de La Rocheandry was Seigneur of Neuvicq. His descendant Antoine de La Rocheandry had a new building built around 1500, as can be seen from the coat of arms on the castle that is still preserved today. The property was bought by the d'Espièmont family in 1593. In 1600 Arnaud de Colombières d'Espièmont was lord of the castle. He bequeathed the property to his daughter Louise in 1625 or 1630, who brought it to her husband, the Marquis Jean-Jacques de Goth de Basternay. He had a stair tower and a square pavilion in the Renaissance style added to the existing manor house . After his death in 1666, the property was inherited by Louis-Henri de Pardaillan de Gondrin, Marquis of Montespan. He was the son of a half-sister of Jean-Jacques and the husband of Madame de Montespan , maitresse in titre of the French king Louis XIV. Their son Louis-Antoine de Pardaillan de Gondrin inherited the castle and had it demolished at the end of the 17th century by the drawbridges break down and the moats let fill up. In 1705 he sold the facility to Noël Bertrand de La Laurencie, Marquis of Charras.

In contrast to the previous owners, the new lord of the castle used the castle as a residence again. His family remained the owners until the outbreak of the French Revolution . With a contract dated February 12, 1792, Noël Bertrand's grandson François de La Laurencie sold the castle without the land belonging to it to Jean Martel from Cognac in order to avoid an impending confiscation. The land was sold to the villagers. Martel's descendants sold the dilapidated and cleared palace complex in 1856 to Michel Calluaud from Neuvicq, who gave it to his daughter Marie. Under the Calluauds, around 1860, a large defensive tower was partly laid down and the west wing of the castle was completely laid down and their stones were then sold as building material. Marie bequeathed the property to her nephew Etienne Clais in 1893, who wanted to sell it for demolition in 1904, but the then mayor of Neuvicqs, Alphonse Porchaire, wanted to keep the complex. He arranged for the community to buy it to use as a town hall and post office.

The castle still serves as the town hall of Neuvicq-le-Château today. There are also changing art exhibitions every year from June to September. Exhibits on the second floor, including a large model of a castle, also provide information about life on a medieval fortification.

description

View of Neuvicq Castle from the north-west

The castle stands on the plateau of a limestone rock, the edges of which are supported by a wall. Its architecture shows the style of the late Gothic flamboyant in the transition to the early French Renaissance and resembles a scaled-down version of the La Roche-Courbon castle, located around 50 kilometers to the west .

The main building consists of elements from the 15th and 17th centuries. The late Gothic three-storey corps de logis has round towers with conical roofs and machicolations at its northeast and southeast corner . In front of the western facade is a hexagonal stair tower with five floors and a polygonal helmet . The stone spiral staircase inside can be reached via the portal with a crowning keel arch on the northwest side of the tower. At the southwest corner of the Corps de Logis is a three-story pavilion with a bent, high hipped roof . Like the stair tower, it dates from the 17th century. All parts of the building are closed by slate-covered roofs and have cross or cross-story windows . A porthole at the height of the attic is crowned by a triangular gable with crab-studded pinnacles and a finial . The top window of the stair tower also has an elaborately crafted and richly carved gable.

Inside the manor house, paneling and chimneys from the 15th and 17th centuries have been preserved, including the large chimney of the former kitchen in the barrel-vaulted cellar.

The castle has a large, round pigeon tower south of the manor house, which today has no roof.

literature

  • Dominique Auzias, Jean-Paul Labourdette: Petit Futé. Charente-Maritime. Nouvelles Éditions de l'Université, Paris 2016, ISBN 979-10-331-0305-9 , o. S. ( digitized version ).
  • Robert Colle: Châteaux, manoirs et forteresses d'Aunis et Saintonge. Volume 2. Rupella, La Rochelle 1984, ISBN 2-86474-015-X .
  • Daniel Duverger: Le château de Neuvicq. Histoire et patrimoine. Edition spéciale de l'AMACS, Matha 2004.
  • Philippe Floris (Ed.): Châteaux, manoirs et logis. La Charente-Maritime. Éditions Patrimoine et Médias, Chauray 1993, ISBN 2-910137-04-X .
  • Anne Thévenin: Neuvicq-le-Château, Charente-Maritime. Zone de Protection du Patrimoine Architectural, Urbain et Paysager. Bordeaux, February 2007, p. 8, 20–22 ( PDF ; 12.3 MB).

Web links

Commons : Neuvicq-le-Château Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Entry of the castle in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  2. ^ A b c Anne Thévenin: Neuvicq-le-Château, Charente-Maritime. Zone de Protection du Patrimoine Architectural, Urbain et Paysager. 2007, p. 20.
  3. ^ A b Anne Thévenin: Neuvicq-le-Château, Charente-Maritime. Zone de Protection du Patrimoine Architectural, Urbain et Paysager. 2007, p. 8.
  4. ↑ a b c Daniel Duverger: Neuvicq et son château, un peu d'histoire , accessed on November 24, 2017.
  5. ↑ a b c d Anne Thévenin: Neuvicq-le-Château, Charente-Maritime. Zone de Protection du Patrimoine Architectural, Urbain et Paysager. 2007, p. 21.
  6. ↑ a b c d Charente-Inférieure. Dictionnaire, annuaire et album. Flammarion, Paris 1901 ( online ).
  7. ^ Jean de Foville, Auguste Le Sourd: Les châteaux de France. Hachette, Paris 1913, p. 76.
  8. ↑ Location: 45 ° 48 ′ 7.6 ″  N , 0 ° 9 ′ 50.4 ″  W.

Coordinates: 45 ° 48 '9.3 "  N , 0 ° 9' 49.3"  W.