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Origin and history

Fervaques Castle, also known as the Fervaques estate or the Kinnor castle, is a residence in the former communes of Fervaques and Cheffreville-Tonnencourt, Calvados. Built mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries, it was redesigned in the 19th century, including its interiors. The castle is partially classified as historical monuments.

Originally, Fervaques was a medieval fief dependent on the Barony of Auquainville. In the 16th century, Jean de Hautemer, lord of the place, married Anne de La Baume-Montrevel. Their son, Guillaume de Hautemer (1538–1613), Marshal of France and Duke of Grancey, built the present castle between 1595 and 1602 near an old family Gothic mansion. The architect François Gabriel, already known for his works at the Château de Carrouges, directs the works. Henry IV was reportedly there in 1590 during the siege of Lisieux during the 8th War of Religion.

When Guillaume de Hautemer died in 1613, the castle passed to his daughter Louise, married to Aymar II de Prie, Marquis de Toucy. The estate remained in the family of Prie and then, by covenant, in the family of Bullion, before being sold in 1802 to Delphine de Sabran, widow of the Marquis de Custine, close to Chateaubriand who stayed there several times. In the 19th century, the Marquis de Portes changed the entrance to the castle, and in 1921 it was acquired by Michel Dassonville, a northern industrialist.

The building preserves medieval elements such as a square tower, a portery with drawbridge and a 15th to 16th century house. The present castle, composed of two pavilions framing a house with a facade in bosses, illustrates the transition between Gothic and classical architecture. The park, classified with the castle in 1995, houses remarkable trees, including a five-year plane tree.

After the Second World War, the castle was transformed into an aerated centre in the 1960s and then into a reception centre for disabled persons and valid since 1982, run by the Kinnor association. A robbery in 1934 had stolen 15,000 francs of silver. The estate, with its moat and hydraulic system, remains a major testimony of the art of building in Normandy at the dawn of the classical age.

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