Château de Villars

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de Villars is located in Saint-Parize-le-Châtel, south of Nevers (Nièvre). The fief, held from 1247 by Bernard de Villars, received around 1300 a fortress of the Philippian type: four round towers, two square towers, curtain walls, a gatehouse with drawbridge, and a moat. Taken by the English in 1360, contested between Armagnacs and Burgundians, it is said by tradition to have hosted Joan of Arc. In 1594, Henriette de Clèves, Duchess of Nevers, granted hereditary ownership of the property to Pierre Dufour; it then passed to the Le Forestier family, and then to the Bouillé family in 1813. Remodelled from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, the estate received in 1789 a second château, an Italianate pavilion with a terrace to the south, then in the nineteenth century a model farm where Charles de Bouillé contributed to the selection of the Charolais breed, and a park attributed to the Comte de Choulot. Listed as a monument historique since 1951, extended to the whole estate in 2015, this private site is undergoing restoration work and offers occasional visits.