Château de Villars-Marange

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de Villars-Marange, in the hamlet of Villars, commune of Mérignac (Charente), takes its name from the Marange forest, cleared between the 12th and 15th centuries and then belonging to the Counts of Angoulême. The building combines a 15th-century gatehouse, a 16th-century main residence with a bretèche and pinnacled windows, a 17th-century wing set at right angles and a southern section remodelled in the 19th century with ornamental crenellations. Having passed through the de Fontenay (1520), Dussault (1524–1666), de La Charlonnerie (1666, held for two centuries) and Duclou (1875, a brandy merchant) families, it has belonged to the de Brou de Laurière family since 1959. Registered as a historic monument since the early 1990s, it retains a heavily altered chapel, now used as outbuildings.