Château de la Roche-Courbon – Saint-Porchaire – Charente-Maritime – France

by Albert Videt Jensen

The Château de la Roche-Courbon is situated in Saint-Porchaire, in the Charente-Maritime department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, in Saintonge. Following an initial partial listing in 1924, the château, the historic buildings, the terraces, the moat and the gardens were designated as a historic monument by decree on 17 September 1946; the gardens have held the ‘remarkable garden’ designation since 2004.
The site, on the banks of the River Bruant, is home to caves inhabited during the Palaeolithic period (Mousterian, Aurignacian, Magdalenian) and preserves Gallo-Roman and Merovingian remains; the site w'appelait alors Romette. Vers 1475, Jehan II de Latour y fait construire une forteresse triangulaire sur un éperon rocheux, naturellement défendue par le marais. En 1603, Jacques de Courbon donne au domaine le nom de La Roche-Courbon ; d in the 17th century, when Jean-Louis de Courbon transformed it into a light-filled residence, surrounded by sumptuous French-style gardens predating those of Versailles.
Abandoned and then sold at auction in 1817, the château fell into a long period of neglect un'à ce que Pierre Loti, qui le surnomme « château de la Belle au bois dormant », lance en 1908 un vibrant appel dans Le Figaro. En 1920, Paul Chénereau l'acquiert et le restaure ; de 1928 à 1939, l'architecte-paysagiste Ferdinand Duprat compose avec lui les jardins actuels : verger, parterres géométriques, pièce d'eau. Menacés d', due to subsidence in the marshes (8 cm per year), the gardens were rebuilt on stilts between 1976 and 2000 (using around 2,500 piles). In 1999, Storm Martin destroyed some 90 hectares of the site’s 150-hectare forest. A Prehistory Museum, restored between 2010 and 2012 in the gatehouse tower, displays artefacts from the caves.