The Château de la Guignardière () is a 16th-century
château
A château (, ; plural: châteaux) is a manor house, or palace, 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 re ...
Vendée
Vendée () is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442.department, western
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
. It was begun in 1555, but was never completed. The building and park are open to the public.
History
The château was begun in around 1555 for Jean Girard, panetier, or breadmaster, to King Henri II. It was planned as a symmetrical building, flanked by tall wings. However, in 1563, Girard was assassinated, and the building site was abandoned. The master masons, who had been imported from Paris by Girard, dispersed across the local area, influencing the designs of several buildings in the area.
Further building was not carried out until the 18th century, when Sylvestre, Count of Chaffault, attempted to complete it. Ionic
pilaster
In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...
s were added to the principal windows, surmounted by a
pediment
Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...
inscribed with the Count's armorial bearings and the date 1773. Gardens were laid out, and the large pond excavated. However, the Count, a royalist, was forced to flee the country following the arrest of
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...
during the French Revolution. During his absence, a republican mob plundered the château, defacing the armorial bearings, and killing the Count's children.
By the early 19th century the château was owned by the Marquis de Saint Denis, a keen agricultural improver. He transformed the gardens, and planted numerous exotic trees, including
Magnolia
''Magnolia'' is a large genus of about 210 to 340The number of species in the genus ''Magnolia'' depends on the taxonomic view that one takes up. Recent molecular and morphological research shows that former genera ''Talauma'', ''Dugandiodendr ...
Zelkova
''Zelkova'' (from the Georgian language, Georgian ''dzelkva'', 'stone pillar') is a genus of six species of deciduous trees in the elm family Ulmaceae, native to southern Europe, and southwest and eastern Asia. They vary in size from shrubs (''Ze ...
'' and
California Redwood
''Sequoia sempervirens'' ()''Sunset Western Garden Book,'' 1995: 606–607 is the sole living species of the genus '' Sequoia'' in the cypress family Cupressaceae (formerly treated in Taxodiaceae). Common names include coast redwood, coast ...
. His successor Henri Luce de Tremont also hoped to complete the château, but instead he chose to move the curved perron stair from the proposed central bay of the garden facade, to the actual central bay. From 1920, the statesman
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who was Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A physician turned journalist, he played a central role in the poli ...
rented a house, known as ''la bicoque'', ("the shack") on the estate. He became friends with the owner, Amedée Luce de Tremont, and was regularly entertained in the dining room of the château. ''La bicoque'' is now a state property, and is open to the public as the ''Maison de Georges Clemenceau''. The château remains privately owned, and is now open to the public. It has been classed as a ''
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 collection of buildings, ...
'' since 1978.
Architecture
The château is an example of
French Renaissance architecture
French Renaissance architecture is a style which was prominent between the late 15th and early 17th centuries in the Kingdom of France. It succeeded French Gothic architecture. The style was originally imported from Italy after the Hundred Year ...
. It comprises a three-bay section of three storeys, the proposed central block, and a tall wing of four storeys. The steeply-sloping slate roofs are supported on the original oak timbers, felled on the estate and dated by
dendrochronology
Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of chronological dating, dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed in a tree. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, ...
to 1556. The roofs are topped by very tall red-brick chimneys. Each window has a
mullion
A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...
granite
Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...
, as are other decorative features. The interiors include large granite fireplaces, probably modelled on published designs by the Italian architect
Sebastiano Serlio
Sebastiano Serlio (6 September 1475 – c. 1554) was an Italian Mannerist architect, who was part of the Italian team building the Palace of Fontainebleau. Serlio helped canonize the classical orders of architecture in his influential treatise ...
.
Parc des Aventuriers
The gardens of the château have been developed as the ''Parc des Aventuriers'', a children's adventure trail and treasure hunt, based on the history of world
exploration
Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...
. Within the park are a number of prehistoric
menhir
A menhir (; from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large upright stone, emplaced in the ground by humans, typically dating from the European middle Br ...