Château de la Motte

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de la Motte, also known as the Vieux Château, stands on a motte at Arthel, in the Nièvre. A fortified house belonging to the counts of Nevers was used in the twelfth century to keep watch over an ancient route; it was replaced in the fifteenth century by a château with a quadrangular enceinte, whose curtain walls and the former wall-walk connect round corner towers. The southern towers survive, notably the south-east tower with its battered base, pierced with gun-loops, arrow slits and bartizans. The main residential block, built against the south curtain wall, has a steep roof, dormer windows with pediments and mullioned windows, together with a spiral staircase in a small tower; its north façade was remodelled between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In the eighteenth century, outbuildings and a carriage gateway were added. For nearly two centuries the château belonged to the de Paris family, before being bought in 1693 by François Guynet, advocate at the Parlement of Paris, and later became a farm in the nineteenth century. Its façades, roofs, towers and curtain walls have been listed as monuments historiques since 1985. A privately owned property under restoration, it is not open to visitors.