CastleAngers (49)

Price :

$3,649,900

USD

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Surface1,680 m²bedrooms15 land71.3 ha

A remarkable listed castle with its chapel, outbuildings and 70 hectares of grounds bordering a river in Anjou. All the buildings are grouped together in the centre of the undivided estate, at the end of a driveway that extends for almost 400 m under a canopy of bicentennial plane trees. It leads to a stone bridge across the moat and on to a gatehouse with four-pitched roof, marking the entrance to the fortress. You then have to pass through a carriage gate, once protected by a portcullis and a drawbridge, or through a small pedestrian gate on one side, to discover the castle's main courtyard, where the central lawn is adorned with sixteen box topiaries.
At the back, the main section of the dwelling is flanked by a wing set at right angles. On the other side stands a chapel. To the south, there is a garden of almost 1 ha, criss-crossed by paths and planted with numerous fruit trees.
It also includes a fishpond, which is thought to have once been a 'longue paume' (long tennis) ground. To the north, a former farmyard is bordered by outbuildings that originally served as a defensive enclosure. It has been converted into a garden with a central fountain. The complex is surrounded by a moat filled with water.
The property is traversed by numerous tracks providing access to the woods, river and meadows. In a single lot, it is bordered on one of its four sides by a navigable river. The grounds comprise parkland, orchards and moats (4 ha), alleys (2.8 ha), a pond (0.9 ha), open meadows (48 ha) undergoing reforestation - 4,500 trees were planted in 2007, woodland (11.6 ha) including oak, pine and poplar trees, and tenanted farmland (3.7 ha).
The castle and its surrounding buildings, the moat, the gardens and most of the surrounding avenues are all listed. The slate roofs either have two or four pitches or are pepperpot-shaped; the walls are of rendered or pointed rubble masonry; the facade and roof openings are mostly rectilinear, some with mullions, some are arched.