Château de La Lombardière

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de La Lombardière stands in the commune of Davézieux, in the Ardèche, on a plateau overlooking the Vocance and Pilat mountains. The estate, formerly known as the terroir of Chambaran, was acquired on 5 May 1571 by Achille Gamon, a Protestant lawyer from Annonay, who became its first lord under the name of Lombardière. In 1658 his grandson Antoine Gamon sold the estate to the Barou family, whose descendants adopted the name Barou de La Lombardière de Canson. The château was extensively remodelled in the 18th century. In 1859, on the death of Barthélemy de Canson, a renowned papermaker and son-in-law of Étienne de Montgolfier, the estate passed to his own son-in-law, Gabriel Veyre de Soras; the de Soras family kept it until its sale to the district of Annonay on 9 March 1970. The site includes a barn known as the Halle aux Muletiers (Muleteers' Hall), whose roof frame in the shape of an upturned ship's hull was built by a ship's carpenter in the 1840s. Today the château houses the administrative services of the Communauté de communes du bassin d'Annonay as well as occupational health services.