The Château de Creully is an 11th- and 12th-century castle, much altered over the years, located in the town of Creully in the Calvados département of France.
History
The castle has been modified throughout its history. Around 1050, it did not resemble a defensive fortress but a large agricultural domain. In about 1360, with the Hundred Years War, it was modified into a fortress. During this period, its architecture was demolished and reconstructed with each occupation by the English and the French:
The square tower was built in the 14th century
A watchtower was added in the 15th century
Drawbridge in front of the keep (removed later in 16th century)
Fortification of the walls and demolition of other buildings likely to pose a danger to besieged inhabitants (stables, depots, outside kitchens).
With the end of the war (1450), ownership of the castle returned to baron de Creully. It was demolished on the orders of Louis XI in 1461 through plain jealousy. According to legend, When Louis XI passed through Creully in 1471 he authorised its rebuilding to thank the local people for their warm welcome.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the barons made modifications:
Filling of the interior ditch and destruction of the drawbridge
Construction of a Renaissance style turret and large windows
Outbuildings, originally stables, added in 17th
Twenty two barons of the same family had succeeded to the castle between 1035 and 1682. In 1682, the last baron of Creully, Antoine V de Sillans, heavily indebted, sold the castle to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister of Louis XIV, who died the following year without living there. Descendants of Colbert occupied Creully until the French Revolution in 1789, when it was confiscated and sold to various rich landowners.
In 1946, the commune of Creully became the owner of part of the site. The castle's large halls are used today for various events, including weddings, concerts, exhibitions and conferences.
The site is classified as a monument historique.
Second World War
From 7 June 1944, the day after D-Day, until 21 July, the square tower housed the BBC war correspondents and their radio studio, whence the first news of the Battle of Normandy was transmitted. From 8 June to 2 August 1944, Field Marshal Montgomery had his tactical headquarters at the nearby château de Creullet. Prime Minister Churchill visited him there.

Château de Creully

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Château de Fontaine-Henry was rebuilt in the 15th and 16th centuries on the foundations of an earlier fortress built by Guillaume de Tilly, sieur de Fontaine-Henry, named in honour of his cousin Henry II of England. The château is still lived in by the descendents of its early owners. The chapel dates from 13th and 16th centuries. The castle's distinctive feature is its extremely high and steep roofing, together with its richly sculpted facade. The ground floor reception rooms are home to a collection of fine period furniture and paintings.
https://www.spottinghistory.com/view/2890/chateau-de-fontaine-henry/

Château de Fontaine-Henry

Château d’Audrieu is located in the heart of the Normandy countryside in northern France, between Caen and Bayeux, just over 2 hours from Paris. The elegantly proportioned château offers the warm welcome of a family home, and is set in 62 acres of parkland and gardens. 
The château expertly mixes the traditional and contemporary. Externally, the château is a historical monument and the original architecture remains largely unchanged. Inside, rejuvenation work reflects the early 1700's when the château was built, whilst incorporating the warmth and comforts of a modern luxury hotel.
https://www.celticcastles.com

Château d'Audrieu

Le château de Bellefontaine est un château situé sur la commune de Samois-sur-Seine dans le département de Seine-et-Marne, classé Natura 2000. Son propriétaire est la Mairie de Paris.
Situation
Le château domine la vallée de la Seine et se trouve au milieu de la Forêt de Fontainebleau.
Le jardin d'agrément du parc du château de Bellefontaine de 3.6 hectares est inscrits à l'Inventaire général du patrimoine culturel.
Historique
Entre 1800, ce fut la propriété de Nicolas Bergasse, député du tiers Etat, conseiller de Louis VI à qui il proposa d'être son avocat. Après la mort de sa femme en 1807, il revendit le château. Plus tard, il fut la propriété du prince Nicolas Troubetskoï (1807-1874), ambassadeur du Tsar de Russie à Paris. Puis il fut la propriété de Catherine Troubetskoï (1840-1875) et du Prince Nicolas Orloff (1827-1885), ambassadeur de Russie à Bruxelles, Vienne, Londres et Paris. Le prince Vladimir Nicolaievitch Orloff (1869-1927), fils de Nicolas Orloff, meurt à Bellefontaine, où il s'était retiré au lendemain de la Révolution russe.
Au XXe siècle, il fut un centre de colonies de vacances avant d'être loué pour des réceptions et des séminaires pour le personnel municipal de Samois-sur-Seine.
Lancé en 2006, un projet d'aménagement pour de l'action sociale n'a pas abouti et le château se retrouve dans un état très dégradé. Le projet de vente, prévu pour deux millions d'euros, a été présenté au conseil municipal du 13 mai 2011. En mai 2011, la ville de Paris, propriétaire du domaine depuis 1944, s'est résolue à le mettre en vente.

Château de Bellefontaine

The Château de Caen is a castle in the Norman city of Caen in the Calvados département (Normandy). It has been officially classed as a Monument historique since 1886.
The castle was built c. 1060 by William the Conqueror (William of Normandy), who successfully conquered England in 1066. His son Henry I then built the Saint George's church, a keep (1123) and a large hall for the ducal Court.
On Christmas 1182, a royal court celebration for Christmas in the aula of Caen Castle brought together Henry II and his sons, Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland, receiving more than a thousand knights.
Caen Castle, along with all of Normandy, was recaptured by the French Crown in 1204. Philip II reinforced the fortifications.
The castle saw several engagements during the Hundred Years' War (1346, 1417, 1450). The keep was pulled down in 1793 during the French Revolution, by order of the National Convention.
The castle, which was used as a barracks during World War II, was bombed in 1944 and seriously damaged.
In 1946, Michel de Boüard, an archeologist from Caen, decided to start excavations in the area of the castle to bring to the light medieval traces. The Musée des Beaux-Arts, which was installed in 1967, opened in 1971.
Structure
The castle was constructed on a hillock and is now in the middle of the city. With an area of 5.5 hectares, it is one of the largest castles in Western Europe. It remained an essential feature of Norman strategy and policy.
Today, the castle serves as a museum that houses
the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen (Museum of Fine Arts of Caen)
the Musée de Normandie (Museum of Normandy) along with many periodical exhibitions about arts and history, in the castle residence;
Saint George's church;
the Échiquier de Normandie (Exchequer of Normandy), used as a temporary hall of exhibitions, which seated the Court of Normandy;
a garden showing plants cultivated in the Middle Ages.
The keep, now razed, had a large square section with round towers at each corner. As the castle, it was also surrounded by a moat. The dry moat still provides a circuit for walkers.
The top of the ramparts offers a splendid view of Caen. Some parts of the curtain walls were built during the 12th century, but most of them date from the 15th century.
The castle has two main entrances: the porte sur la ville ('gateway to the town') and the porte des champs ('gateway to the fields'); they are reinforced by two barbicans.
Recent works
Since March 2004, the town of Caen has undergone the restoration of the ramparts, with the financial help of the ERDF (consolidation, opening of arrow slits walled during the 19th century) . 6,000 m³ of earth are being removed, in order to give a better view of the north-west wall of the 12th century. This operation has revealed the cellar of a private house of the 15th century which still has its firehouse, a powder magazine and two walls of a forge of the 14th century. Traces of the stables have also been found.
The base of the keep has been cleared, and people are still working on excavations around it.

Château de Caen

The Château de Bénouville is a building in Bénouville, Normandy, near Caen (northern France). It was designed in 1769 by architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux and built in 1770-74 and 1776-80 at the request of Hyppolite-François Sanguin, marquis of Livry (1715–1789) and his marquise Thérèse Bonne Gillain de Bénouville, heiress of the property. The interior was under construction from 1778 to 1780 under the direction of Jean-François-Étienne Gilet, the architect of Caen. In 1792, it was purchased from the widowed marquise by a fermier général (tax collector) who was guillotined in 1794. His daughter inherited the property which remained in that family until 1927. It then became the property of the general council of Calvados which turned it into a maternity hospital (singer Gérard Lenorman was born there). In 1980, it was rehabilitated and restored, opening its doors to the public in 1990.
This château is one of the best preserved works of Ledoux, making it a major monument of neoclassical architecture at the end of the eighteenth century. Its monumental staircase (illustrated, left) and its somewhat severe exterior architecture were very modern for the time.
The château is located on the west side of the Canal de Caen à la Mer, on the southeast edge of the town of Bénouville, and just southwest of the Pegasus Bridge, made memorable on D-Day, 1944. During WW II the château/maternity hospital was run since 1935 by Madame Lea Vion surnamed 'la comtesse', director (from 1947-1953 she was even mayor of Benouville) who also led a resistance group of the GMO belonging to the réseau 'Centurie'. The maternity hospital became a hearth of resistance for the region: fugitive allied pilots and French youngsters unwilling to work for the Germans found a safe haven here. Weapons and a maquis-wireless transmitter were hidden here. Vion was in frequent contact with resistance activists Leonard Gille, Rene Duchez and Henri Leveille. One of her informants was Georges Gondrée, the café owner near the bridge over the Caen Canal, who secretly collected information on German defences there for the benefit of D Company 2nd Ox and Bucks under Major John Howard who would storm the bridge successfully in the night before D-Day. Via Madame Vion this important information from Gondree was sent through to England. On D-Day morning soldier Wally Parr, a sharpshooter from the Ox and Bucks, fired some grenades from a German anti tank-gun towards and over the château, because he erroneously thought German snipers to be present upon the roof of the building, until Major Howard made him stop this activity. Howard told Parr there were women in labour inside the chateau. At this very same moment, however, German Lieutenant Hans Hoeller an artillery officer from 8. Kompanie (Schwere Waffen), 192. Panzergrenadierregiment, Kampfgruppe Rauch, 21st Panzerdivision was standing on top of the château together with a sergeant and soldier in order to observe the canal bridge. Earlier Hans Hoeller had frustratingly found that his anti-tank troop could not pass through Benouville, because of too heavy resistance from British parachutists belonging to A Company, 7th Para Battalion under command of Nigel Taylor. He sought a suitable place to set up his batteries. Madame Vion had tried in vain to stop Lt. Hoeller from entering the "chateau". Hoeller and his colleagues were subsequently forced by Wally Parr's grenades to retreat downstairs immediately before opening their own fire on the Ox and Bucks defending the canal bridge nearby.