Manoir de la Touche
ManorHidden Treasure
Manoir de la Touche, located in Mouliherne (Maine-et-Loire), is a Renaissance château built in the 16th century. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- Manor
- Period
- Renaissance (16th century)
- Location
- Mouliherne, Maine-et-Loire, Pays de la Loire
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.4632, 0.0115
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00109222
Nestling in the Anjou bocage, the gothic-Renaissance volumes of the Manoir de la Touche stand in the heart of Mouliherne. Three centuries of alterations have given it a composite and endearing character, a rare example of a rural manor house in the Loire Valley.
History
The Manoir de la Touche is one of a constellation of discreet manor houses dotted around Maine-et-Loire, far from the fame of the great châteaux of the Loire, but with an authenticity that time has preserved. Situated in Mouliherne, a discreet village in north-east Angers, it embodies the model of the manor house of the rural middle nobility: a residence of modest comfort and prestige, more concerned with the management of an agricultural estate than with courtly ostentation. What makes La Touche so special is precisely the way in which its construction campaigns are clearly superimposed on one another. Where many manor houses have been standardised through restoration, this one retains eloquent architectural scars: a medieval base that can still be seen in the thickness of the walls and the layout of the original openings, seventeenth-century additions that bring a classical rigour tempered by local taste, and nineteenth-century additions that bear witness to a family's desire to restore the lustre of its heritage without betraying its spirit. The tour invites you to take a close look at the stone - the white tuffeau so characteristic of the Val d'Anjou, a material that is easy to cut and luminous under the region's changing skies. The façades reveal traces of reworked bays, reinforced channelling and dormer windows added in successive styles. The parkland, with its sober hedged farmland, frames the whole without trying to compete with the formal gardens of the grand mansions, preferring a planted intimacy that protects the manor house from view and from the passage of time. For visitors with a passion for rural heritage, La Touche offers a different experience from that of spectacular monuments: the pleasure of deciphering a history built up layer by layer, of finding in each architectural detail the signature of an era and of a family rooted in its Anjou roots. Its protection as a historic monument since 1963 confirms the recognised heritage value of this building, a fragile and precious witness to a provincial seigneurial France.
Architecture
The architecture of the Manoir de la Touche is a composite of three major building campaigns from the 15th to the 19th century, with a variety of elevations and ornamental details. The main building, oriented in accordance with local custom to take advantage of the south-facing aspect, is made of Anjou white tuffeau, the soft, luminous limestone quarried from the cliffs of the Loire Valley, which gives all Anjou architecture its distinctive luminous character. The steeply pitched roofs, covered in the region's blue slate, provide a striking contrast with the whiteness of the walls. The oldest part of the building, dating from the 15th century, can be identified by the thickness of its load-bearing walls, the probable presence of a stair tower or corner turret that articulates the volumetric composition, and the remains of Gothic mouldings on some of the window frames. The 17th-century campaign introduced a more regular arrangement of windows, now with small panes under straight architraves, and was probably accompanied by the development of outbuildings arranged around an enclosed or semi-enclosed courtyard, following the model of the classic Anjou manor house. The more discreet 19th-century alterations mainly concerned the secondary elevations and a number of interior features, such as neoclassical mantelpieces, wood panelling and the organisation of the interior layout. Today, the whole forms a picturesque, well-proportioned volume, typical of this type of rural Anjou seigneurial residence, where the modest size does not exclude the real quality of the workmanship and the obvious care taken with the composition of the façades.
Related Figures
Propriétaires nobles locaux du XVe siècle, fondateurs du manoir primitif dans le contexte de la reconstruction post-Cent Ans en AnjouFamille seigneuriale du XVIIe siècle ayant commandité les importants remaniements classicisants de la demeurePropriétaire du XIXe siècle ayant engagé les travaux de restauration et de mise au confort moderneRené d'Anjou (1409-1480), duc d'Anjou dont le mécénat et l'influence architecturale marquent toute la construction noble du Maine-et-Loire au XVe siècleInspecteur des Monuments Historiques ayant instruit le dossier d'inscription de 1963
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Manoir de la Touche located?
Manoir de la Touche is located in Mouliherne, Maine-et-Loire department, Pays de la Loire region, France.
When was Manoir de la Touche built?
Manoir de la Touche dates back to a period built during the Renaissance (16th century).
Is Manoir de la Touche open to visitors?
Manoir de la Touche is currently closed to visitors.