Château de Gardères: An Eighteenth-Century Country Residence in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page11 sections
History
Château de Gardères is an eighteenth-century classical residence in France, built on the site believed to have been occupied by an earlier feudal castle. Its history is closely associated with the Day family, who developed the estate over four generations before the French Revolution. The château and its grounds were listed as historic monuments by an order dated 7 July 1997.
From the feudal fief to the Day family
The origins of the site are only partly known. The arrangement of the premises and the cadastral plan support the interpretation that the château occupies the location of an earlier feudal castle. In the fifteenth century, the fief of Gardères, a hereditary estate, belonged to the House of Coarraze and included Gardères, Luquet, Séron, and Aast.
Catherine de Coarraze left the estate to her son, Gaston de Foix-Carmaing, who sold it in 1504 to Bernard II de Coarraze. The lordship later passed by inheritance to the Castelnau-Laloubère family. In 1603, they sold it to Antoine d’Incamps, lord of Abère in Vic-Bilh.
Jérôme de Day acquired the château and lordship in the 1670s. He was a wool merchant, treasurer-general of the finances of the crown of Navarre, and a royal councillor. His marriage in 1672 to Catherine de Nays, heiress to the lordships of Gomer and Nousty, brought several lordships together under his family.
The eighteenth-century residence
The Day family enlarged and embellished the estate through four generations, creating a property measured at 360 journaux, or more than 140 hectares. The present château was built during the second half of the eighteenth century at the initiative of Pierre de Day, Jérôme de Day’s grandson. Plans gave the residence its current appearance, and it remained a Day family home until the upheavals of the French Revolution.
The château also received an important royal visitor. Philip V of Spain, the Bourbon king whose reign began in 1700, spent the night there on 29 May 1706 with his retinue during the War of the Spanish Succession, the European conflict over the Spanish monarchy and its succession.
Revolutionary change and nineteenth-century inheritance
Pierre Joseph de Day was born in 1760 and became a councillor of the Parliament of Navarre in 1779. The Parliament was the former Kingdom of Navarre’s senior judicial and administrative institution. During the French Revolution, he emigrated to Spain. After the family returned to Gardères, he served on the Tarbes district council and became mayor of Gardères from 1808 to 1820.
Pierre Joseph de Day died at the château on 27 November 1828. He is described as the last lord of the five municipalities that had formerly been associated with the estate. The property later passed through marriage to the Cazaubon-Lavedan family and to Marie d’Olce de La Lande of Bigorre. Marie d’Olce de La Lande inherited it on 10 February 1846.
Farm use, abandonment, and restoration
In July 1904, the château was sold to Bernard and Joséphine Bacqué for 5,040 francs. The property became a farm, and after the war the building housed businesses selling drinks, hardware, and groceries. Their daughter, Marie Bacqué, continued to live there until moving to a retirement home in the late twentieth century.
The château was then abandoned for many years. Neglect, looting, squatting, and the accumulation of rubble severely damaged the property, while the storm of 1999 caused particularly serious harm. The Bacqué family sold the estate later that year to David Alexandre Liagre, its current private owner, who began a gradual programme of restoration and rehabilitation intended to preserve the character of the historic residence.
The association Gardères 1723 was founded in 2004 to promote the heritage of the area. From 2008, cooperation with the Adriana horticultural school of Tarbes supported the restoration of the formal gardens in the main courtyard. The estate is also associated with Vieilles Maisons Françaises, Demeures Historiques, and EBTS France, the French association for topiary art and boxwood.
Remains
Château de Gardères is an eighteenth-century classical building with a rectangular plan and a water-filled moat. The residence stands on a raised basement, which is clearly visible on the south façade and becomes less apparent toward the north. Its grounds contain the principal house, numerous outbuildings, an orangery, formal and productive gardens, a farmyard, and a green theatre.
The château
The north and south façades are arranged around a central pavilion and two symmetrical wings. On the north side, the pavilion projects from the main wall, rises through three levels, and is crowned by pediments pierced by circular openings called oculi. Two turrets were added on the south side at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Inside, the staircase has a carved wooden balustrade decorated with curling volutes.
Gardens and cultivated grounds
Formal gardens
The formal gardens in the main courtyard cover approximately 2 hectares. A French formal garden uses symmetry, geometric planting patterns, clipped hedges, and controlled visual axes. At Gardères, boxwood designs and topiary, the shaping of shrubs and trees into ornamental forms, structure the garden spaces. Fountains form part of the garden complex, which also includes an orangery, a sheltered garden building historically used to protect citrus and other frost-sensitive plants.
Medieval garden and orchard
A medieval kitchen garden is devoted to useful plants, especially medicinal, culinary, and aromatic species. The garden at Gardères also contains poisonous plants. The conservatory orchard preserves regional varieties of fruit and vegetables, including a centuries-old apple tree, apricots, peaches, and heritage plums.
Arboretum and Anglo-Chinese garden
An arboretum planted from 2000 contains maples, chestnuts, firs, cedars, oaks, limes, hornbeams, beeches, walnuts, and medlars. It includes trees and shrubs traditionally used in regional hedges, as well as a thuja maze. A Wollemia nobilis was planted there in 2012.
The estate’s Anglo-Chinese garden contains rhododendrons, azaleas, spring bulbs, and annual plants. Its planting areas are complemented by the orangery, linking the ornamental garden spaces with the sheltered cultivation of plants.
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