Château de Bourguignon-sous-Montbavin: A Palladian Country Pleasure House
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page13 sections
History
Château de Bourguignon-sous-Montbavin is a nineteenth-century country pleasure house in France, built for the tradition of rural retreat that drew Laon’s nobility and later bourgeoisie to Bourguignon-sous-Montbavin. The present building was completed in 1835 in the style of a Palladian villa, a country house inspired by Andrea Palladio’s balanced façades and classical proportions. The privately owned property is a protected historic monument.
From vineyard building to country house
In 1810, Jeanne-Rose Boilletot, the wife of Imperial Corps of Engineers captain Rémy-Pierre-Charles-Noël Ponssin, acquired by exchange a garden plot and a building connected with viticulture. This enlarged a property that already contained a probably late-seventeenth-century vendangeoir, a building associated with grape harvesting and wine production.
Boilletot’s mother acquired the vendangeoir on Rue des Vendangeoirs in 1821 for her granddaughters. She recovered it in 1828, demolished it to enlarge the estate, and commissioned the château that stands today. She also designed the gardens, linking the new residence to the established tradition of leisure estates around Laon.
Ownership and later development
After Boilletot’s death in 1836, the property passed to her daughter Jeanne-Rose. Widowed in 1811, she had remarried in 1816 to Jean-Baptiste Lambert, Chevalier de Barive, a captain of the elite gendarmerie and former bodyguard of Louis XVIII.
Jeanne-Rose’s daughter, Marie-Adrienne Francine de Barive, was married to Victor-Alfred, Viscount Yver de Saint-Aubin. When she died in 1895, the property passed to her sister, Marie-Joséphine Laure de Barive. In 1906, she transferred it to their cousin, Count de Hennezel d’Ormois, who was then mayor of Bourguignon and a prominent local scholar. He also presided over the Federation of Learned Societies of the Aisne.
The estate now covers approximately one hectare. It was more extensive in the nineteenth century, before part of the grounds was taken for the road between Bourguignon and Royaucourt-et-Chailvet. A chapel was erected in 1922 in honour of Marguerite Lenoir des Ardonnes, Countess of Hennezel d’Ormois, who had died on 19 September 1919. Its construction marked the Hennezel d’Ormois family’s presence at Bourguignon-sous-Montbavin.
By order of 7 June 2004, the château was registered as a historic monument in France. The protected proposal included the château’s façades and roofs, the park, the enclosing wall, and the eighteenth-century portal, while the chapel was proposed for protection in its entirety. The property represents the country pleasure-house architecture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, combining the retreat tradition of the Laon area with a Palladian-inspired residence and landscaped grounds.
Remains
The estate is organized around a limestone château, its courtyard and garden elevations, a western park, enclosing walls, outbuildings, an eighteenth-century portal, and a chapel at the southeast corner. The main building has a quadrangular plan, while the surviving features preserve evidence of both the nineteenth-century residence and the earlier wine-producing property.
The château and its interiors
Façades and classical design
The courtyard and garden façades are almost identically arranged, each with five bays and four levels, including the level beneath the roof and an attic storey. The three central bays contain two superimposed levels of Serlian openings at ground-floor and first-floor level. A Serlian opening combines a central arch with narrower openings on either side, and here the arrangement reinforces the building’s Palladian character.
On the garden side, three French windows occupy the centre of the ground floor. On the courtyard side, the corresponding openings form a portico reached by six steps. Two horizontal bands separate the ground floor from the level above, while rusticated pilasters, vertical elements treated to resemble roughly jointed masonry, rise at the corners and beside the central section. They give the middle of the façade the appearance of a very slight projecting centre. The gables contain four ground-floor openings and two first-floor openings, together with an attic storey. A sundial on the south side was restored in 1923 by A. Lagneau, a craftsman from nearby Mons-en-Laonnois.
Interior decoration and cellars
Much of the interior decoration has disappeared. The single staircase retains a wrought-iron railing and a mahogany handrail. The salon and dining room preserve panelling and over-door paintings of landscapes, although both rooms require restoration.
The cellars extend over two levels. The upper level belongs to the construction of the château and has vaults lined with ceramic vessels, probably to provide insulation. The lower level is older and built entirely of stone. It preserves remains of groin vaults, formed where two barrel vaults intersect, probably belonging to the earlier vendangeoir.
Park and estate buildings
Park, walls, and portal
The principal part of the park lies west of the château and contains plantings associated with romantic gardens. A tulip tree stands on the left when facing the park, and a purple beech on the right. At the rear of the property, beside the road to Royaucourt-et-Chailvet, a black pine grows astride the enclosing wall. Steps flanked by a balustrade lead into the garden.
The main portal on Rue du Cygne dates from the eighteenth century and survives from the earlier vendangeoir. It forms part of the estate’s older fabric alongside the lower cellar remains.
Outbuildings
The outbuildings bear anchor irons dated 1818. They have been restored and converted into two rural lodgings, with a screen of vegetation separating them from the remainder of the property.
Chapel of Saint Mary Magdalene
Exterior form
The chapel stands at the southeast corner of the estate. Dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene, a Christian figure associated with repentance, devotion, and witness to the Resurrection, it was built in 1922 in a Neo-Romanesque style. The limestone building has an octagonal plan and a small entrance porch supported by four massive columns with stylized capitals. A small niche above the entrance probably held a statue of the saint.
Interior memorials and glazing
Inside, an altar stands with two commemorative plaques recalling successive owners of the property. Two windows contain stained glass, including one depicting scenes from the life of Saint Mary Magdalene. The architect and stained-glass artist are unknown.
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