We recently visited two different types of château in Burgundy; one was typical French style and the other has been modernized (quite stylishly so).
Part One - à l'ancien
This château is on an old Roman road. In Roman times, there was a guard house here. If invaders were spotted, the guards would light a huge bonfire to give the residents of St. Florentin (about six and half kilometers away) advance warning to protect themselves. There was also a Roman pottery factory nearby and numerous pottery remnants and shards have been found on the château grounds. Most of these are now in the collection of the British Museum in London.
The château has been in the same family since the mid-1700's, although the château is much older than that. Family occupation was interrupted for a period in the nineteen fifties and early sixties when local farmers lived there. When the family moved back into the château in 1965, they were confronted with huge manure piles topped by squawking roosters. They had no electricity and had to use an outdoor privy that emptied into the moat. Over the years they've renovated the château and now spend summers and temperate weekends there.
You still approach the château via a bridge over the moat:
Two views of the moat.
As you can see, the exterior is the same as in the old postcard:
with flanking stables and grange:
The entrance is simple and unimposing, befitting its rural locale:
I fell in love with its traditional French kitchen:
There is also a room with an antique pool table. The Baroness of the château told us that the game of pool is French, dating from Napolean the First. However, a brief net search seems to date it as earlier than that. Apparently it evolved from lawn croquet. When it moved indoors they used a raised table with green cloth to simulate grass. Here is their pool table covered with a paisley cloth for dust protection.
The term 'cue' comes from the French word queue (meaning tail).The original cue was shaped like a mace with one pointy end and one mallet like end. Apparently it was hard to hit a ball with the mallet when it was close to the raised sides of the early pool tables and players had to turn the mace around to use the pointy end. Eventually this morphed into today's cue.
The antique stoves were fascinating:
as was the period furniture and the toys:
Not to mention the gardens and two towers behind the château:
I LOVE all the pictures but I could live in the kitchen! Oh, the copper hanging on the wall, such wonderful cookware!
When I see you, I want to know more! Do you know the family or is it open for tours?
Posted by: Leah | October 04, 2009 at 08:01 PM