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General & History
This is a truly magnificent, fully restored, historically significant chateau. The chateau has 8 bedrooms to sleep 15 and has a private swimming pool. The Comte and Comtesse welcome you to their chateau.
The chateau is located in Normandy, in the Cotentin region, fifteen minutes away from the beaches that were the scene of the Normandy landings and from Sainte Mère l'Eglise.
An interesting fact for you - On 26 June 1944, in the presence of General Collins and General von Schlieben, the Surrender of Cherbourg, was signed in this superb 17th Century residence, which has always belonged to the same family.
This property, with its romantic appearance, is like a jewel in a setting of greenery. It is surrounded by a garden of six hectares with numerous 19th Century "follies": a small manor on the scale of children, a chapel, a temple to Neptune, an attractive wash house with a well and a picturesque spring.
The garden is planted with rare species of trees (palms, gingkoes, arcuaria, etc) that flourish thanks to the influence of the Gulf Stream along the nearby coast. Further back, the fine vegetable garden, with remarkable greenhouses, was laid out in the 18th Century, and in the garden was set a beautiful heated swimming-pool.
The chateau is an old building, with some of its oldest walls going as far back as the early 16th Century, which has been renovated and improved up to the 19th Century. On 26 June 1944, the Surrender of Cherbourg was signed between the American General Collins and the German General von Schlieben, within its walls.
The chateau has an extremely old history since it is one of the rare Gallo-Roman estates (late B.C era) still existing in the region. In fact, there is a feudal motte in the present garden, which is the foundation of the ancient keep. And if visitors are curious enough to walk towards the attractive path lined with hundred-year-old beech trees, known as the "Path of Sighs", they will discover that it used to be a Roman road. A fine washhouse and well of an impressive size still stand near this path.
After the Gallo-Roman era, a very important pottery centre was set up near this path and the house, dating back to the pre-Carolingian period (before the 8th Century). It used to be a small village bordered by a charming river and a small wood of willows.
As for the château itself, what is left of the original manor is the early 16th Century turret and its arrow slits, to the right of the house. The rest was burned down during the Hundred Years War by the English. The first owner of the chateau (14th Century) was from the house of Meurdrac, a very old family of knights, the ancestors of the present owner.
To end this brief history about the chateau, there is one final anecdote. This charming and powerful place was the source of inspiration for the author Barbey d'Aureyvilly, who used it as the setting for his novel "Le Bonheur dans le Crime".