Château du Plessis-Macé

Longuenée-en-Anjou (Le Plessis-Macé)

At Le Plessis-Macé, north-west of Angers, a château of schist and tuffeau bears the trace of several centuries. According to the castles.nl website, a wooden castle on a motte was raised in the 11th century, probably by a Macé or Mathieu du Plessis or by his father, then rebuilt in stone soon afterwards. Around 1300 it passed to the La Haye-Joulain family. In 1434 Catherine de La Haye-Joulain gave it to Louis II de Beaumont-Bressuire, who, from 1440, rebuilt the half-ruined fortress as a comfortable château in the late Gothic style. The Beaumonts received Louis XI there in 1472 and Charles VIII in 1487. In 1510 the château passed by inheritance to the Du Bellay family, who welcomed Francis I in 1532. In 1678 financial difficulties led to its sale to Guillaume Bautru; in 1749 his descendants ceded it to Antoine Walsh, a Nantes merchant of Irish origin, a slave trader according to castles.nl. The Walsh family sold it in 1888. In 1908 Charles-Victor Langlois bought it cheaply and gradually restored it; his descendants gave it to the Département in 1967. The Anjou tourism website mentions a chapel with a rare Gothic gallery.

Getting there: At Le Plessis-Macé, north-west of Angers; visit and festival to be checked. Coordinates: OpenStreetMap (Nominatim) (position of the château in the database). No protection date was found in the sources read.

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

Ambient sound