Continuing with Loire Valley Château Week, today I am writing about Château de Villesavin, which is located on the Sologne region of the Loire on the Beuvron River. Originally a manor house was constructed on the site in the 14th century, but the present-day building was built by Jean La Breton, Lord of Villandry, (he also owned Chateau Villandry) who was the finance minister under the reign of King Francois I. Breton oversaw the construction of the extravagant Chateau de Chambord and taking a cue from it, he used the same French and Italian architects and craftsmen. The chateau was purchased in 1937 by Count and Countess de Sparre, and their direct descendants Lars and Véronique de Sparre own and run it today.
The main part of the handsome chateau is horse show shaped along with two other buildings on each side with similar architectural. The structure on the right side had an enormous tree in the middle, creating much needed shaded for the warm weather.
There are two museums in the chateau. What began as a collection of globes has blossomed into The Marriage Museum which now has over 1500 objects related to weddings. Vitrines with reimagined wedding settings between 1890 and 1950 proliferate the museum along with other significant wedding souvenirs and memorabilia. The second museum exhibits a collection of antique horse drawn buggies and carriages.
One standout feature is a dovecote, which is a tower used to house pigeons or doves, and the one at Château de Villesavin can hold up to 1500 birds. Inside the tower are hundreds of perches for the birds to collect.
There’s 27 acres of forest and open meadows surrounding the estate and there’s a small farm tailored for children where children could feed and play with goats, sheep, cows, rabbits, chickens, and donkeys. Another offering for children is a hunt to find the ghost that’s haunting the chateau and on Halloween they offer a special hunt.
https://www.chateau-de-villesavin.fr/
CLICK HERE to watch the video on Facebook I did for Atout France last month that includes footage of the chateau, which includes the inside of the dovecote.
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