En un regard
Le château en bref
The château of Châteauneuf-sur-Loire (Loiret) succeeds a royal castle built in the 11th century under the first Capetians, enlarged by Philip the Fair and then embellished at the end of the 14th century by Louis I of Orléans. Between the mid-17th and the early 18th century, the Phélypeaux de La Vrillière family rebuilt it as a palatial complex in Apremont limestone, brought by the Allier and the Loire, and surrounded by French-style formal gardens. Acquired by the Duke of Penthièvre in 1784 and looted during the Revolution, it was largely demolished from 1792 by the architect Benoît Lebrun, who kept only the rotunda, a gallery, the orangery, the outbuildings and the entrance pavilions. Between 1821 and 1832, Eulalie Lebrun transformed the gardens into an English-style landscape park. Communal property since 1926, the château houses the town hall, its former stables house the Musée de la Marine de Loire, and the park, some twenty hectares in size, is open to walkers.