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Origin and history

The castle of Bridoré, located 200 metres south of the church Saint-Roch de Bridoré (Indre-et-Loire), is an ancient fortress of the 14th and 15th centuries. Nicknamed for no reason the castle of Barbe-Bleue, it was built on the site of Breuil-Doré, at the origin of the village. The early fortress, linked to the family of Sainte-Maure, was rebuilt under Charles V the Sage for Marshal John I Le Meingre, known as Boucicaut (1310-1368), then by his son John II (1366-1421), both Marshals of France. The estate then passed to the Boucicauts, then to the Batarnays, of which Imbert (1438-1523) raised the dungeon to 30 metres.

In the 16th century, René de Batarnay, grandson of Imbert, developed a prototype caponnier, a key element of the bastioned fortifications. In 1641 the Marquis Charles de Boursault acquired Bridoré, then passed on to his daughter Anne-Louise, who in 1717 gave him to the nuns of Beaulieu. Sold as a national good at the Revolution, he remained in the same family until today. Ranked a Historic Monument in 1911, it is distinguished by its unique defensive system: enclosure with machicoulis tower, pentagonal caponhole ditches, and dungeon-logis connecting high and low courtyard.

The castle, never besieged, preserves remarkable remains: an oven with a 14th century hypocauste (bath of steam and sanitary), a chapel without vault, and fragmentary frescoes. Recent restorations (2021) involved the counterscarp wall and a caponière. Today, inhabited by the descendants of the painters Simone Lefèvre and Pierre Mouveau, who ensured its conservation, it combines medieval military architecture and Renaissance innovations, as the false chalks added around 1590.

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