Château

English translation

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History

The château de Dampierre forms with its gateway and its dovecote an architectural ensemble from the early 17th century, perfectly balanced and original in the association of its coloured materials - stone, brick, granite - which compose a filigree architecture, very mannered, in the Italian style. The gateway and the dovecote are probably the work of the architect François Gabriel, the first of the Gabriel lineage, royal architects, as attested by a power of attorney dated 19 July 1610 drawn up before the notaries of Torigni. Located to the east of the château on the edge of the courtyard known as the cour du fer à cheval, they were formerly connected by buildings of which the foundations remain. The gateway - in fact a garden folly, with a purely decorative role - comprised three doors, one for vehicles and two for pedestrians, delimiting three bays surmounted by three dormers. The dovecote is constituted of courses of brick and red sandstone in alternation, ending with a cornice with modillions; it has retained all of its nesting holes. The château was very much remodelled in the early 19th century (reconstruction of the central pavilion), then in the 1970s.