France · 13th century
The Château de Gevrey-Chambertin is a castle located in Burgundy, 12 km from Dijon and 30 km from Beaune. Both, the castle and 5 acres (2.0 ha) of associated vineyard land, were purchased in 2012 by a businessman named Louis Ng of Macao, for the price of $10 million ($14 million in 2025 dollars).
The castle of Gevrey-Chambertin, was certainly considerably revised in the second half of the 13th century, and was, during St Bernard lifetime, and even probably slightly earlier, a priory belonging to the Abbey of Cluny. Hughes, bishop of Auxerre, and his sister Maheldis – both descendants of Manasses of Vergy, a powerful leader of Burgundy in the 9th century, in 1015 and 1019 donated the "CURTIS" called Gevrey to the monastery of Cluny of which abbot was then St Odilon.
Then, Yves de Poisey and his nephew Yves de Chazan; both abbots of Cluny and born of the lords of Vergy, gave its first official appearance to the building, between 1257 and 1275 – a vast rectangle, surrounded with moats. The southwest entrance was composed of a stone bridge, and further a drawbridge, flanked by two square towers. A big square tower stood at the southeast corner, and at the northeast was a dovecote on top of a small "cul de lampe" tower. In the northwest, a gallery could be seen on top of a round tower. The wall with its covered way allowed to walk from a tower to the other. Plundering, wars, fires and time have all contributed to the destruction of the fortress.
The only remaining parts of the original buildings are the drawbridge (considering that one of the towers and the drawbridge system are lacking), the big square tower, and the living quarters next to the drawbridge. Several remnants of the wall allow one to have an idea of what the castle used to look like.
Among the many works done since 1791, the date of sale of the castle as a national estate and until the end of the 19th century, the conversion of the middle floor of the square tower was probably the cause of the destruction of the exceptional tiled floor, dating from the time of St Bernard or maybe Yves de Poisey. This tiled floor, which probably already needed repairing, was not preserved as it should have been, considering its age and its artistic value. It was thrown away in what was called the "arsenal", and which is now a grass-covered terrace.
Text adapted from “Château de Gevrey-Chambertin” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Château de Gevrey-Chambertin ranks #7,214 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #667 of the 793 mapped in France. Founded c. 1280, it is older than 64% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 1080 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Besançon, 80 km away. See how France compares in the castle statistics.
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