En un regard
Le château en bref
At Mesnil-au-Val, in the Val de Saône south-east of Cherbourg, Barville Manor is inseparable from Gilles Picot de Gouberville, a Norman gentleman whose journal, kept from 1549 to 1562, provides an exceptional account of rural life in the 16th century. Built at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, the manor first belonged to the du Fou family, before passing to the Picots through the marriage of Jeanne du Fou to Guillaume Picot in 1507. Gilles de Gouberville was born there and lived there until his death in 1578; two years later, the estate left the family line in favour of Jacqueline du Grux. In 1886, a fire almost entirely destroyed the manor, of which only the tower survived. The tower, square in plan at its base, becomes octagonal and then circular at its top; it houses a chapel on the ground floor and a dovecote with nesting niches (boulins) on the upper floor, and bears a sundial on its south face. The tower has been classified as a monument historique since 10 February 1987. It stands on private property.
