Description: XVIth castle, It is doubtless the most attractive castle of Renaissance style of Perigord. It possesses all the characteristics of it : clear building, large bays abundantly decorated, towers covered with slates, fireplaces finely sculptured and delicately chiselled machicolations. A three-storeyed main building separates a big circular feudal tower attached to an small octagonal turret of staircase, of a barlongue tower containing the main staircase.
Inside, everything is pretext for sculptures: the frames of doors, the keystones and the magnificent monumental fireplaces. One of them, in the first floor, is typical of the art the Renaissance. It is a vast fireplace the coat of which is divided into niches, decorated with sculptures representing six of twelve Hercule's works. We can also admire the sweet chestnut tree skeleton in the form of opposite hull of the grand-room of the second floor.
Let us indicate finally the sheepfold and the dovecote in the form of dome.
We ignore who really was the head of the project. As for the builder, it is supposed to be either Mondot de La Marthonie who died in 1517, or Jean or Gaston de Puyguilhem, both bishops of Dax from 1514 till 1555... unless it was begun with the first one and finished by the second.
Be that as it may, this ancient noble den was in dereliction at the end of the XIXth and the State acquired it in 1939 to renovate it.
This was the ancient fief of Flamenc, Marthonie, Chapt, Rastignac, Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Maynard de Queilhe and Nercm families then property of the State.
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