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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Bury came into being in the 11th century when Thibaud III, Count of Blois, had a fortress built to protect his fief after the loss of the county of Touraine in 1044. This first castle, located at the entrance of the forest of Blois near the Cisse, was destroyed in 1145 by Sulpice II of Amboise. He was one of four strategic fortresses (Bury, Les Montils, Chaumont, Montfrault-Chambord) defending Blois County, as Georges Touchard-Lafosse points out. A second castle was rebuilt in the 12th–13th centuries, entrusted to the lords of Burel, including Geoffroy I of Bury, before being occupied by the English between 1356 and 1365 during the Hundred Years War.

In the 16th century, Florimont Robertet, treasurer of the king, acquired the estate in 1511 and commanded a Renaissance castle between 1515 and 1525, described as a " rival of Chambord". At his death in 1527, his widow Michelle Gaillard lived there until 1549. Their son, Claude Robertet, obtained in 1566 the elevation of chestnutry in Barony by Charles IX. The estate then went to Marshal Nicolas de Neufville de Villeroy and was sold in 1633 to Charles de Rostaing, who created the county of Rostaing by uniting Bury and Onzain.

Delayed in the seventeenth century, the castle is dismantled and serves as a stone quarry. Its ruins, located on the present municipality of Molieuf (Valencisse), are classified as Historic Monument in 1926. Private property since 1969 of the Guillenchmidt family, the site is not accessible to the public. According to a local legend, the ruins would be haunted by the spirit of Thibaud le Tricheur, the first Count of Blois, as part of the Infernal Hunt.

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