Château des Torcy

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château des Torcy, in Garnat-sur-Engièvre in the Allier, occupies the site of a former seigneury of more than a thousand hectares comprising woods, ponds, vineyards, farms and mills. According to local tradition, Louis VII the Younger and Henry II Plantagenet are said to have received Pope Alexander III there on his way to Souvigny. The fief is recorded as early as 1503 under Phelibert de Torcy, squire, and then his sons Lays and Jehan; Jean de Torcy was confirmed as lord of the estate in 1527. A castle motte surrounded by ditches, associated with the former fortified site, was levelled around the middle of the 19th century. During the Revolution, the estate belonged to Claude Amable des Ulmes, who died in 1790; following his emigration, part of the property was sold while the rest remained under sequestration. The Baron de Neuchaize, owner from 1821, met a tragic end in 1832, which led to the estate being sold at auction in 1833 at the court of Moulins to Jacques Sarton du Jonchay. The present château, built in the mid-19th century, has a rectangular two-storey main building with a square projecting bay and a triangular pediment; it retains two older brick entrance pavilions dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, preceded by a Louis XIII-style gate. Private property.