Château du Hamel is a

château A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Nowaday ...

in the '' commune'' of

Castets-en-Dorthe Castets-en-Dorthe (; Gascon: ''Castèths Andòrta'') is a former commune in the Gironde department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. On 1 January 2017, it was merged into the new commune Castets et Castillon.Gironde Gironde ( US usually, , ; oc, Gironda, ) is the largest department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of Southwestern France. Named after the Gironde estuary, a major waterway, its prefecture is Bordeaux. In 2019, it had a population of 1,62 ...

département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivity, territorial collectivities"), between the regions of France, admin ...

'' of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. The present building was constructed in the mid-16th century on the remains of a 14th-century

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

. All that remains of this earlier structure is the base of the

keep A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in c ...

on the eastern side, seen in the interior as a heptagonal vaulted room. The château is privately owned. It has been listed since 1963 as a ''

monument historique ''Monument historique'' () is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which National Heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a coll ...

'' by the French Ministry of Culture.

References

Châteaux in Gironde Monuments historiques of Gironde Castles in Nouvelle-Aquitaine {{France-castle-stub