Château de Vernée (également sur commune de Querré)
CastleHidden Treasure
Château de Vernée (également sur commune de Querré), located in Champteussé-sur-Baconne (Maine-et-Loire), is a medieval landmark built in the Middle Ages. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- Castle
- Period
- Medieval (11th-15th century)
- Location
- Champteussé-sur-Baconne, Maine-et-Loire, Pays de la Loire
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 47.6741, -0.6325
- Mérimée Reference
- PA49000084
On the outskirts of Maine-et-Loire, the Château de Vernée combines a 15th-century medieval tower with a Second Empire hunting lodge, surrounded by ponds and moats where the River Baconne reigns supreme.
History
Nestling in the bocage of northern Maine-et-Loire, between Champteussé-sur-Baconne and Querré, Château de Vernée is one of those places that resist over-simplistic definitions. It is neither a fortified castle nor an ordinary pleasure villa: it is the living superimposition of eight centuries of history, where each stone bears witness to a distinct era without the whole ever appearing incoherent. What makes Vernée truly unique is the harmonious coexistence of a 15th-century medieval tower - with its sober vaults and period framework - and a main building that was extensively remodelled in the Second Empire style between 1860 and 1868. The architects René Hodé and A. Beignet were able to graft the comfort and aesthetics of their time onto an architectural base several hundred years old, creating a residence dedicated to entertaining and hunting, a noble activity par excellence under the Second Empire. The natural setting amplifies the character of the place. The River Baconne and its pond shape the area around the château: a seventeenth-century causeway, with sturdy retaining walls and a double arch, spans the waters with utilitarian elegance. An earthen embankment runs northwards to an ancient motte, a reminder that these lands were inhabited and defended long before the first architect drew up his first plan. The outbuildings, built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with a few additions in the nineteenth, form a coherent, well-ordered ensemble. Their careful, unostentatious architecture is the sign of a demanding owner who was more concerned with longevity than splendour. Listed as a Historic Monument in 2011, Vernée is now a rare testimony to the continuing existence of aristocratic living quarters in Anjou.
Architecture
The architecture of Château de Vernée reads like a palimpsest of stone, where successive interventions have enriched the building rather than erasing it. The oldest part of the building, particularly the 15th-century tower, is in the late Gothic style from Anjou, with tufa and schist walls, sober cross vaults in the south-west pavilion and traditionally assembled oak roof timbers. The surviving fireplaces from this period feature the moulded mantels typical of the late Middle Ages in Anjou. The main building, redesigned between 1860 and 1868 by Hodé and Beignet, adopts a neo-classical Second Empire vocabulary, tempered by the constraints of the existing building. The facades became more regular, the openings were harmonised and the steeply pitched roofs were probably fitted with zinc or glazed terracotta finials, a signature of the period. The interior was redistributed to accommodate hunting lounges, dining rooms and flats in line with the new standards of comfort: centralised heating, meticulous woodwork and panoramic wallpaper. The landscaped grounds deserve particular attention: the 17th-century causeway, with its double round arch and matching retaining walls, is a hydraulic engineering structure of the highest quality. The outbuildings, laid out in a U-shape around a courtyard, form a group of buildings of balanced proportions, with regular bays and soberly moulded surrounds. Their long-sloped roofs covered in flat tiles are in keeping with the architectural tradition of the Nord-Angers bocage.
Related Figures
René Hodé — architecte angevin, maître d'œuvre de la transformation de 1860-1868A. Beignet — architecte co-responsable du chantier Second Empire du châteauSeigneurs médiévaux de Vernée — possesseurs du site dès le XIIe siècle, non identifiés avec certitude par les sourcesPropriétaires du XIXe siècle — commanditaires de la refonte en demeure de chasse, figures de la noblesse ou haute bourgeoisie angevine
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Château de Vernée (également sur commune de Querré) located?
Château de Vernée (également sur commune de Querré) is located in Champteussé-sur-Baconne, Maine-et-Loire department, Pays de la Loire region, France.
When was Château de Vernée (également sur commune de Querré) built?
Château de Vernée (également sur commune de Querré) dates back to a period built in the Middle Ages (11th-15th century).
Is Château de Vernée (également sur commune de Querré) open to visitors?
Château de Vernée (également sur commune de Querré) is currently closed to visitors.