The chateau at Le Grand-Pressigny is an interesting place to visit as it not only has architectural qualities and a pretty garden but it is also home to the area's Museum of Prehistory.
The chateau's formidable keep, built at the end of XIIth century was later enhanced by a strong defensive enclosure with towers.
The impressive ramparts surrounding the castle date from the 14th century. This was  timely as because of its location between the English and French conflicts it became a strategic stronghold during the 100 Years War. The duke of Burgundy an ally of the English, seized the castle in 1417 but only held it for a year before it was retaken for the French by the dolphin Charles, the future Charles VII.
The chateau was restored around 1560 by Honorat de Savoie, a loyal lord to the Kings of France. The arcaded gallery built during the wars of religion around the main courtyard shows the care devoted to this restoration.
Walking  through its central arch you can't help but get a feeling of times gone by.
https://www.experienceloire.com/le-grand-pressigny-chateau.htm

Château du Grand-Pressigny

Account

by category

Login

Name

by region

Title

Name in English

Château de la Guerche is a castle in La Guerche, in Indre-et-Loire, a département in France.
It was built during the reign of Charles VII of France, for his mistress Antoinette de Maignelais and her husband André de Villequier.
The castle was besieged in 1592, during the French Wars of Religion. Restored in the seventeenth century and renovated subsequently, it is now open to visitors.
It has been listed since 1944 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.

Château de la Guerche

Under the Ancien Régime in France this château was the seat of the Barony of La Celle-Guenand. The estate encompassed what is today, the commune of La Celle-Guenand in the Indre-et-Loire départment in the Centre-Val de Loire Region of France. Château de La Celle-Guenand is listed as a Monument historique since 11 June 1943 by the French Ministry of Culture. Château de La Celle-Guenand is situated at an altitude of 100 meters.
Snapshot
Type : Medieval castle
Built : c1422
Ownership : Antoine de GUENAND
Materials : Tuffeau stone
Founded in the 10th century as a Monastery
Reconstructed in the 15th century as a Fortress
Restored in the 17th century as a private Residence
Additional outbuildings built in the 19th century
History
The first known Lord of this medieval château is Antoine de GUENAND, seigneur de Staint-Cyran, du Jambot, de Vitray, de Tanchou, de Brossein, and de La Celle-Geunand. His ancestry can be traced to Henry I of England (through Henrys' illegitimate daughter, Alice FitzRoy). Antoine de GUENAND is cited on April 1, 1422 for his marriage to Oralie de FONTENAY. He was appointed Captain-Governor of Loches in 1441 under Charles VII of France (who had been crowned in Reims in 1429 through the endeavors of Joan of Arc to free France from the English).
Antoine's son, Pierre de GUENAND, Lord of La Celle-Guenand inherited the estate in 1487; he was Governor of the Royal Castle at Amboise (Château d'Amboise), and Grand Chamberlain of France during the reign of Charles VIII of France. Antoine II de GUENAND, chevalier continued in his father's noble footsteps. The estate passed to Georges de GUENAND who was childless. At his death in 1556, the estate was inherited by his Aunt, Antoinette d'AZAY (née de Guenand).
In 1537, during the reign of Francis I of France, Guillaume de COUTANCE, Lord of La Celle-Guenand married Rene d'AZAY, bringing together two chatelaines; La Celle-Guenand and La Celle-Draon. The estate was held by the COUTANCE family until 1780. Religious conflict in 1779 had led to the removal of the pastor of La Celle-Guenand and the two parishes were merged, to be known as La Celle-Guenand.
Jean Cantineau de Commacres lorded over the castle of La Celle-Guenand until 1785 the last years of the French monarchy. Followed by Pierre Gaullier to midway through the French Revolution until 1794 (Louis XVI of France who was beheaded by guillotine in January 1793). The Revolution ended in 1799 and the estate went on to be held by the Gaullier des Bordes through the July Revolution of 1830, the First French Empire and Second French Empire until 1935, when it passed to Jacques Devaulx de Chambord.
Today
The Chateau de la Celle-Guenand remains privately owned and is operated as a Bed and Breakfast.

Château de La Celle-Guenand

The castle of Fief-Milon is a castle located in the commune of Le Boupère, in the canton of Chantonnay in Vendée.Constructed for a part in the fourteenth century, the castle was part of the defense system of Pouzauges. Its elevated position gave it the role of a watchtower and offered an exceptional panorama over the Gâtine mountains, which dominate the Haut Bocage Vendéen, Saint-Michel-Mont-Mercure and Le Boupère. This high position is explained by its primary function: to defend Pouzauges against the English during the Hundred Years War. The framework of the common, with carved punches and curved struts, is dated between 1585 and 1610. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the medieval castle (a central body flanked by two large circular towers) underwent changes, in the manner of Viollet-le-Duc: the two towers were given a "fortified" appearance by crowning them with a False machicolations with brick lacing. In 1861 new buildings were erected linking the castle to all the communes. In 2005, the castle was inscribed in its entirety in the Supplementary Inventory of Historic Monuments, while the communes and enclosure were registered in 19891. The castle was acquired by the family of Monti de Rezé who still owns it today.
http://www.frenchchateau.net/chateaux-of-pays-de-la-loire/chateau-du-fief-milon.html

Château du Fief-Milon

Le château les Vallées, situé à Tournon-Saint-Pierre, en Indre-et-Loire, est un château construit au xixe siècle sur l'emplacement d'une demeure plus ancienne détruite à la Révolution.
Après avoir été la propriété de la famille Lhéritier de Chézelles, dont est issu Samuel Lhéritier de Chézelles général napoléonien et baron d'empire, le domaine a été vendu en 1844 à Théophile Auguste Aymé Doyen qui construisit le château actuel. Celui-ci reste dans la famille Doyen jusqu'en 1925, année durant laquelle les parents de la future cantatrice Mado Robin s'en porte acquéreurs.
Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le château est racheté par une colonie de vacances.
Le parc du domaine a la particularité de posséder quatre séquoias, dont deux sont parmi les plus grands de France.

Château Les Vallées

The Château d'Azay-le-Ferron is a 15th-century castle and 17th-century manor located in the commune of Azay-le-Ferron in the Indre département of France. It features a garden à la française and a French landscape garden dating to the 17th century, redone in the 19th and 20th century. The interior is richly furnished. The château is owned by the city of Tours and is open to the public. Château d'Azay-le-Ferron is situated at an altitude of 111 meters.
The castle is classified as a Monument historique since 1950.
The first château was constructed by Prégent Frotier in the late 15th century, on land which had belonged to Nicolas Turpin de Crissé in the 13th century, then became part of the barronie of Preuilly in 1412. The tower of the first château, dated 1496, still stands, incorporated into later structures of the 17th century.
In 1560, the chateau passed to the family of Louis I de Cravant, who owned it until the end of the 17th century. The owners included Cesar de Vendôme, son of King Henry IV of France and Gabrielle d'Estrées, who became Baron of Preuilly by royal decree, and Louis IV de Crevant, a Maréchal in the army of Louis XIV. A residence and a new wing and pavilion were added to the tower in 1638, probably by Louis III de Crevant d'Humieres, and windows were pierced in the old tower to transform the fortress into a residence. This new wing was ornamented with the salamander emblem of King François I, and the ermine emblem of Claude de France.
In 1699, the baronnie Château d'Azay-le-Ferron was purchased by Louis-Nicolas Le Tonnelier de Breteuil. His daughter, Gabrielle-Emilie, was the mistress of Voltaire from 1733 until 1737. The de Breteuil family owned the chateau until 1739, when it was sold to Louis François de Gallifet. The de Bretueil family probably constructed the east wing of the building, which carries their coat of arms.
After 1739, the estate passed to a long series of owners. Shortly after the Revolution, it was owned by two prominent manufacturers of weapons for the army of Napoleon. In 1852, it was purchased by Victor and Antoine Luzarche. They and their descendants owned the house through the rest of the 19th and early 20th century.
The granddaughter of Antoine Luzarche, Marthe, married George Hersent, a civil engineer and owner of a large firm which built canals and ports, and inherited the chateau in 1925. When she died, she left the house and park to the city of Tours.
The Interior
The château is furnished as it was when occupied by the Luzarche family and George Hersant and his wife, between 1850 and 1953, when it opened to the public.
On the ground floor, the small dining room has a buffet from the 18th century, and a collection of 18th century still life paintings. The Salle des Gardes contains a large collection of hunting trophies from Roger Luzarche d'Azay, including an enormous stuffed crocodile from his hunting trips to Africa in the late 19th century.
The grand stairway to the first floor has an inscription on the wall noting that it was built by Jacques de Crevant, Baron of Preuilly, in 1638. The Salon Empire on the first floor has a notable collection of furniture and art from the period of the First French Empire collected by Gregoire Michel, a Paris banker and the owner of the house from 1803 to 1852. The bedroom of Madame Hersent has a notable Empire bed and furniture, and botanical painting by Jean-François Garneray (1775–1837). The Salon Resturation has a magnificent parquet floor in the form of a rose, taken from the private mansion in Versailes. The room was the bedroom of George Hersent.
The Salle Cassas features a gallery of drawings made by Louis-François Cassas (1756–1827), who was born in the chateau, the godson of the Marquis de Gallifet, the owner at the time. From 1784 onwards, Cassas was in the company of the Count of Choiseul-Gouffier, the French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He traveled throughout the Ottoman Empire and made drawings of the monuments of Turkey, Egypt and Syria. In 1816, he became the inspector of the royal manufactury of tapesestries of Gobelins, which represents the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia which ended the Thirty Years' War.
The library features a large 16th century tapestry, "L'Enlevement des Sabines," from either Flanders or Paris, and the painting "L'Allegorie de la Paix, from 1641, by the Dutch artist Hendrick Martensz Sorgh (1611–1670).
The bedroom of Madame Luzarche d'Azay is furnished in the Louis XVI style, with the original pink striped wallpaper from the period.
The largest and most impressive room of the house, the Grand Salon, is located on the second floor. Its main features are an early 17th-century painted ceiling, brought from the same house in Versailles as the parquet floor of the Salon Restauration; and richly decorated chests and cabinets from the Italian Renaissance period. It displays three paintings by the Genoese artist Antonio Lagorio (1652–1690), and a painting of the Virgin and the Child by Simon François de Tours (1606–1671), believed to be an allegory about the birth of a child to Anne of Austria, the Regent of Louis XIV.
The large dining room, also on the second floor, has fine wood panelling from the 1930s, a marble fountain from Languedoc, a large Baccarat crystal chandelier, and Aubusson tapestries representing Louis XV hunting.
The Salle Voltaire, furnished in the 18th century, recalls the romantic relationship between Voltaire and the daughter of Nicholas-Louis Le Tonnelier de Bretieul, owner of the chateau.
The Salon de la Tour, on the lower level of the tower, the oldest part of the chateau, displays French Regency period commodes and portraits of the early owners of the chateau.
Park and gardens
The original park was created in the 17th century, and had an area of fifty hectares, 10 hectares in a landscape park and the rest called a "parc agricole," probably for raising fruits and vegetables. A few of the alignments of the early garden exist, and are carefully preserved.
In 1856 Antoine Luzarche commissioned the Buhler Brothers, landscape architects, to create a French landscape garden, with perspectives, alleys and bosquets of trees, covering an area of eighteen hectares. The new park included an arboretum of exotic trees, including Sequoia trees from California.
Beginning in 1920, Georges Hersent added a classical Garden à la française, with broderies and topiary, near the house, integrated with the architecture.
In 1995, the François Rabelais University in Tours created an orchard of pear and apple trees in one part of the park. In 1999, fruit trees on traditional espaliers were grown against the walls, along with table grapes from forty varieties. In 2003, a rose garden with 168 rosebushes of 56 varieties was added to the garden. In 2008, a path was added that traced the history of the rose from Roman times to the present.