Château de Touffou

Bonnes

On a rocky promontory overlooking a peaceful meander of the Vienne, the château de Touffou unfolds seven centuries of architecture with no apparent break, which makes it one of the best-preserved castle ensembles in Poitou. Mentioned as early as 1127 under the name of "Tolfel", in the 15th century it became the seat of a castellany whose authority extended over several neighbouring parishes, a vassal of the powerful barony of Chauvigny. The Romanesque keep, the Gothic curtain walls and the Renaissance-style Saint-Jean tower, added by the Chasteigner family from 1519, are superimposed without ever contradicting one another, offering a striking shorthand of French military and residential history. Three distinct gardens — a fragrant rose garden, beds of giant artichokes edged with clipped box, and a lower garden where old wash-houses survive at the water's edge — have earned the estate the national "Jardin remarquable" (remarkable garden) label. Closed today to interior visits, the château keeps, seen from the road and the towpath, a melancholy and proud silhouette, watching over the river as it has for nearly nine hundred years, between tales told at Poitevin firesides and the very real memory of the great seigneurial families that succeeded one another here.

Getting there : Private château currently closed to interior visits; remarkable gardens visible from the towpath and on the Journées du Patrimoine (Heritage Days)

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound