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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Château du Gazeau, located in Sainte-Ouenne in Les Deux-Sèvres, is a former relay of pilgrims on the way to Santiago de Compostela, built in the 4th quarter of the 15th century. It was built by Pierre Aymeret and his wife Jeanne de Gazeau, remaining in their family for more than three centuries, until 1796. Originally, the site included buildings organized around a courtyard, including a chapel, a long gallery for pilgrims (40 meters), and two turrets vestige of a enclosure. The castle, in ruins in the early 19th century, lost some of its structures, such as the seigneurial house and the dovecote.

Ranked a Historic Monument in 1970 and 1995, the castle suffered a fire on August 2, 2013, requiring renovation. Although private property, it was exceptionally open to the public during the summer of 2015. Its architecture mixes discrete defensive elements (canonières, mâchicoulis) and welcoming functions, with an entrance chestnut decorated with flamboyant Gothic motifs. The tithe barn, the staircase and the bread oven testify to its mixed use, both seigneurial and agricultural.

Today, the Château du Gazeau retains traces of its medieval and religious past, while bearing the marks of successive destructions and restorations. Its listing in the inventory of Historic Monuments protects the remaining buildings, including the chapel and the gallery of pilgrims, rare examples of architecture dedicated to hospitality on the jacquary roads in Poitou. The foundations of the south, now extinct, recall the original size of the building.

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