Armellière Château: A Seventeenth-Century Country Residence in Arles, France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.8
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page10 sections
History
Armellière Château is a country residence in France, on the territory of Arles at Le Sambuc in the Camargue. Construction began in 1605 for Pierre de Sabatier, who intended it for his lands in the region. Its early history is unusually well traced through the contracts that organized the supply of materials and the work of several Arles and regional craftsmen.
Construction from 1605 to 1607
On 13 April 1605, Sabatier commissioned two boatmen to carry stone quarried at Mouleyrès. A few days later, 28 sesterées of land were cleared for the project. On 6 August, he bought 8,000 dressed-stone blocks from quarrymen at Beaucaire, with delivery planned over the following year.
The building was already under construction when Sabatier engaged Pierre Breugier, a master mason from Montpellier who lived in Avignon, on 6 February 1606. Breugier agreed to construct the château for 126 livres. Sabatier later contracted Bonnefoy Vernet, a locksmith from Arles, for the ironwork on 3 April, and the Sabonnadière brothers, Arles carpenters, for carpentry and joinery on 16 May.
Masonry stopped after a disagreement, and Breugier’s contract ended on 25 October 1606. A replacement agreement dated 13 November transferred completion to Jean Cavar, a mason from Beaucaire who had established himself in Arles around 1600 to 1610. The walls had probably reached the first floor by then.
The château was complete by 15 October 1607, apart from the crenellations and the coverings of its four chimneys. Sabatier moved into the building before that winter. No architect is named in the surviving contracts. Sabatier may have prepared the plans himself, while a possible connection with Antoine Borel, architect of the city of Arles, remains hypothetical.
Later changes and protection
The machicolations resemble features at the Hôtel de Laval-Castellane and the Priory of Malta in Arles, a comparison that has informed interpretations of the château’s design. The entrance door-window and its balcony may belong to the reign of Louis XVI, who was king of France from 1774 to 1792.
The façades and roofs of the outbuildings were listed as historic monuments in 1987. In 1989, protection was extended to the château’s façades and roofs, the enclosed gardens north and south, their boundary wall, gateways and grilles, the northern terrace, and the moats.
Remains
Armellière Château survives as a residence accompanied by enclosed grounds and service buildings. The surviving architectural scheme includes four corner towers, a stairwell, defensive upper details, roof features, and vaulted spaces, while the estate retains gardens to the north and south, a northern terrace, boundary structures, and moats.
Main building
Walls, towers, and upper details
The completion contract specified exterior walls and four corner towers, together with machicolations, crenellations, gutters, gargoyles, a roof turret, dormer windows, and chimney stacks. Machicolations are projecting defensive structures with openings directed downward, crenellations form the notched edge of a wall or tower, and gargoyles discharge rainwater. The château’s façades were also to receive decorative treatment during Jean Cavar’s completion work.
Vaulted interiors and entrance
On the ground floor, the contract called for groin vaults, formed where two barrel vaults intersect, as well as semicircular vaults. The towers and turrets were to contain vaults carried by pendentives, curved triangular transitions supporting a vault above a square or polygonal space. The entrance includes a door-window opening onto a balcony, a feature that may date from the reign of Louis XVI.
Estate and outbuildings
Gardens, terrace, and moats
The estate includes enclosed gardens north and south of the château. Their boundary wall, gateways, and grilles remain part of the protected complex, along with the northern terrace and the moats.
Outbuildings
The façades and roofs of the outbuildings form part of the surviving architectural ensemble and have protected historic-monument status.
