Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Château de Laprée, located in Quiestède in the Pas-de-Calais, finds its origins in a former seigneury dependent on Quiestède, mentioned in 1425. The land of Laprée, originally owned by the Le Roy family, was acquired in 1669 by Jean-Jacques II de Lencquesaing, annoyed in 1661, after the forced sale by the heirs of Eustache-François Le Roy. The latter, in debt, had left an old feudal castle surrounded by ditches and a drawbridge, a symbol of the new status of his buyer, receiver of Artois's aides and mayor of Aire.

In 1740 Dominique-Jean-Jacques de Lencquesaing, the future grand baili of Saint-Omer, had the present castle built on the plans of surveyor Jean-Louis Chipart, after the fire of his residence in Saint-Omer in 1737. The building, made of bricks and stones with a blued slate roof, was designed to separate reception, privacy and service spaces. The gardens, designed by "master May", adopted a French style, while frescoes by the Welsh painter van Mine adorned the company salon. A castral chapel, rebuilt or restored in 1741, strengthened the sacred character of the place.

The 19th century marked a radical transformation of the estate under Louis-Dominique-Arthur de Lencquesaing: suppression of feudal symbols (bridge-levis, moats), redrawing of the interiors and of the English park, and elevation of the castle in 1892 to house a large family. The gardens, originally organized in "bulingrins" in the 18th century, were redesigned to harmonize with the perspectives from the salons. The park, including a pond created from the filled ditches, is now included in the pre-inventory of remarkable gardens.

The castle was continuously transferred to the Lencquesaing family since 1669 and was restored in the 1980s and 2009s to preserve its architectural heritage. It maintains exceptional records of the history of the northern provinces under the Old Regime. Partially classified as historical monuments since 1986 (facades and roofs of the pavilion of 1676), it opens to the public during Heritage Days, testifying to four centuries of family and regional history.

The estate once covered about 40 hectares, including agricultural outbuildings ( stables, barns, bakery) and experimental fruit gardens. The Lencquesaing, native to Hainaut, have accumulated rare documents, studied for their reflection of the social representations of the Art nobility. The castle thus embodies both a seigneurial residence, a place of memory and an example of architectural evolution from the 17th to the 19th century.

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