La Ferté-Imbault Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

La Ferté-Imbault Castle (Loir-et-Cher), a former medieval fortress rebuilt in the Renaissance, is the largest brick château in the Sologne, and one of the oldest. It was the seat of the illustrious d'Estampes family for four centuries. The lordship of La Ferté-Imbault was the most important in southern Sologne, its jurisdiction covering the parishes of Salbris, Saint-Genou (now Selles-Saint-Denis), Marcilly, Loreux and Souesmes. It was a considerable estate made up of more than a hundred farms covering tens of thousands of hectares, stretching from Loreux to Souesmes and from Saint-Viâtre to the boundaries of Theillay. The château is an impressive "rectangular structure, pierced with large and handsome windows and flanked by four towers [...]; massifs and avenues of centuries-old trees lend an air of grandeur and poetry that strikes both the heart and the imagination" (François Coillard). "Its position is wholly pleasant and agreeable, in a spot where the Sauldre divides into several channels... The château's red turrets rise amid these waters and this greenery, and crown most splendidly the rich picture spread before the eye" (Louis de La Saussaye).