Castle of the Two Towers

Historical

The Neuville castle was a priory dependent on the abbey of Ferrières, famous Benedictine abbey. Louis III and Carloman were crowned in this abbey.

The Château de la Neuville seems to have been built in the 13th century, perhaps on older buildings. After the destruction caused by the troubles of the Hundred Years War, Louis de Blanchefort, abbot of Ferrières from 1465 to 1505, ordered its reconstruction. Descendant of an illustrious family, Louis de Blanchefort, fifth child of Guy de Blanchefort, seneschal of Lyon and chamberlain of Charles VII, and of Souveraine d'Aubusson, was the nephew of Pierre d'Aubusson, grand master of the Knights of Rhodes. Louis XI was his godfather.

The last reconstruction of the castle therefore dates from around 1500.

But at the end of the 16th century, during the wars of religion, the castle was burnt down. It is believed that the fire took place in 1562 during the siege of Pithiviers by the Protestant armies. After this fire, the castle was not rebuilt. Like many, it served as a stone quarry. A farm has settled in the farmyard. Its history to the present day is still poorly understood. In any case, it was a farm until the 1960s.

The castle ruins have been listed since 1928 in the Supplementary Inventory of Historic Monuments.

In 2002, a theater troupe moved into the place, which was open to the public and to shows in 2007. Since 2011, a contemporary garden has been created around the château.

Architecture

The staircase tower
You enter the tower through a beautiful door surmounted by an archer and the arms of the Abbé de Blanchefort. In the lintel of the door, a peephole is ingeniously concealed. We then climb a beautiful spiral staircase giving access to three doors. These doors each opened on a drawbridge giving access to the three floors of the castle. When you reach the top of the grand staircase, you climb a new small staircase built into the thickness of the tower wall. This leads to the upper room or studium. It was the room often reserved for the Lord to serve as a place of study. On this floor we can guess the remains of a bretèche that defended the entrance to the tower.

The cellar
On the ground floor of the tower, entering the old house, you can access the cellar of the castle. It is a well-preserved vaulted room.

The oratory
Above the cellar, there is the old oratory of the castle which has a beautiful stone altar surmounted by a magnificent archer cut in the shape of a cross.

The north gable
It presents the remains of three superimposed fireplaces: the sparingly ornate one on the ground floor, which was that of the castle's kitchens, that on the first floor, a fine example of a Renaissance fireplace, and that finally very degraded, on the second floor.

The enclosure of the court
Today it keeps walls 9 m high on three sides and a corner tower. This tower, typical of 13th century military architecture, retains interesting ancient graffiti.
A beautiful door with a curious helical molding opens in the southern wall.

The barnyard
It has a 13th century door and a beautiful Renaissance portal decorated with pinnacles, unfortunately mutilated, and a farmhouse from the 17th and 18th centuries.