La Grange

La Grange sits within a defensive layout that preserves both medieval and later work. The site retains its surrounding moats and parts of the cellar system that belonged to the medieval stronghold; those cellars were partly rebuilt in the seventeenth century. Entry to the main courtyard requires crossing the water defenses by three bridges and a working drawbridge, then passing through three gates for carriages and pedestrians to reach a paved lower court, all elements protected for their historic value.

The main residential block rises as a single principal floor with an attic above, and the façades are richly sculpted with floral ornament, carved human heads and several coats of arms, among them those of Fouquet, Bertier de Sauvigny and Selancy. The estate’s outbuildings include structures added in the nineteenth century, notably a “new house” dated 1856 on the lintel of a pedestrian door and two service houses known as Alger and the guardian. The dovecote is formally protected, and other dependencies that form the farm complex — the moats with their bridges, the drawbridge, the farmyard and its surrounding courtyard of three houses, the barn and the former stable — are likewise classified as historic elements.

Inside, the château preserves a significant group of eighteenth‑century furnishings, paintings, ceramics and decorative objects. Several interior features are listed for protection: the service and principal staircases; the dining room and the grand hall together with their faience stoves (glazed earthenware); the red salon; an Empire-period bedroom with its matching bathroom; the blue salon; and a paneled library installed in the former chapel, including its stair, gallery and fireplace. The kitchen retains its original fireplace and bread oven, and other protected rooms include a large bedroom and a richly decorated golden bedroom. The grounds contain funerary sculpture, notably a sepulchral monument and a monumental cross.

The grounds around the house combine older structural elements and a modern planting scheme. Terraces with stone balustrades, formal staircases and sculpted animals — two lions and two chimeras carved in stone — are all recognised as protected features. The original classical garden no longer survives; the present landscape was laid out by Franck Neau and centres on the Jardin des Prairiales, a planted scheme of flowering meadows with a wide central lawn flanked by two broad bands sown with seasonal flowers. Boxwood plantings form an understorey that continues the meadows on one side, while the opposite slope is arranged with clipped boxwood and beds of lilies and daylilies (Hemerocallis). The Jardin des Prairiales is part of the Gardens without Limits network.