A tour of the Château

The park of
La Roche-Bagnoles

It’s early afternoon and the sun is already high in the sky. We are a little early for our rendezvous, so we take the opportunity to go for a walk in the park’s arboretum and enjoy the shade of a sequoia close to the Château of La Roche-Bagnoles.

From a distance, we spot our guide who is waiting by the fountain just opposite the château. It is 2 pm and we join the rest of the group for a guided tour of this building that is now the town hall. The tour focuses on the exterior of the château, which enables us to look carefully at the different façades of the neo-Renaissance-style building.

We follow our guide to the music kiosk so we can stand in the shade while we hear the story of the Goupil family and the construction of the Château de La Roche-Bagnoles. Anne-Marie-Catherine, the first owner of the Château, entrusted its building to the architect David in 1855, which she was able to afford thanks to the fortune mysteriously acquired by her father and her uncle, who was also her husband!

The façades of the neo-Renaissance château

We approach the château, which we are told is built from local stone. The main façade, which faces due south, has a granite base and corner towers forming a frame around the central block.

These protruding towers and the pepperpot turrets are features borrowed from castles of the Middle Ages, but are merely decorative.

In the centre, bartizans decorated in red brick and topped by a pointed hexagonal roof are pierced with decorative arrow slits. They are ornamented with medallions on which you can see the initials “G” for Goupil and “L” for Louis, as well as faces that certainly represent the Goupil family.
The rear façade, which is highly decorated, strongly resembles the front of the building. However, the towers have been replaced by two corner bartizans that are lower and squatter, but are also ornamented with medallions.
On the central bay we can read the inscriptions “Annoy” and “1858” giving the date that the building was completed. We dpot a bas-relief right at the top which depicts the face of a woman: could this be Anne Marie Catherine Goupil, the mistress of the house?
We finish the tour of the Château with the east façade. On the redbrick chimney we can see a cherub known as “putto”. He is holding in his hands a parchment on which is written “David”, the name of the architect.