Château de Balleroy

The Château de Balleroy (French pronunciation: [ʃato də baləʁwa]) is a seventeenth-century château in Balleroy, Normandy.

The fief of Balleroy, near the forest and abbey of Cerisy, was acquired on April 1, 1600 by Jean de Choisy, wine supplier at the court of Henry IV.

The castle was built from 1626 to 1636 by his son, Jean II de Choisy who became State Councilor and chancellor of Gaston, Duke of Orléans, brother of Louis XIII, who hired architect François Mansart from 1634 for the reconstruction of the château de Blois.

The architect François Mansart, who had already drafted the plans of the château de Berny, a remodeled dwelling for chancellor Pierre Brûlart de Sillery (1624-1625), came frequently to Balleroy from 1632 to 1634 and consigned the old plans of the former castle and village, that were shifted and laid around a main axis to enable a view on road, avenue or honorary path, moderate slope, cour d'honneur framed by two square, long, low, common pavillons, covering floors of boxwood scrollwork, and a terrace surrounded by a balustrade.

A modern œuvre, which marks a turning point in the history of French architecture.

Built in bricks, schist and pierre de Caen, the castle has a central pavillon topped by a roof lantern flanked by two lower buildings. The others are set around the gardens draughted by André Le Nôtre.

The interior of the castle offers a grand salon remarkable for its paintings of Pierre Mignard : Le Char du Soleil, portraits of Louis XIII and the family of his son Louis XIV, wanted by Mme de Choisy.

The jardin à la française is made up of low boxwood hedges and a flanked terrasse of two pavillons. The castle dominates the river Drôme.

The garden is cited by Philippe Thébaud among the 300 prettiest gardens in France.

The castle is ranked as a monument historique since January 18, 1951 in France.

One of the pavilions hosts the Ballons museum, by Malcolm Forbes, which contains documents on the Montgolfier brothers.

Text adapted from “Château de Balleroy” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Château de Balleroy ranks #2,575 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #202 of the 469 mapped in France. Founded 1626, it is older than 30% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 580 atlas entries founded in the 17th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,958 times in the last 60 days, more than 66% of the atlas. 1 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. It is one of the 16 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Normandy. See how France compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗