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Origin and history

The castle of Jouffroy-d'Abbans, also known as the Castle of Abbans, is a 13th century castle located in Abbans-Dessus, in the Doubs department. It was built on a rocky spur overlooking the Doubs Valley, probably at the site of an ancient Roman castrum. The primitive stronghold belonged to the lords of Abbans, whose origins date back to the ninth century. After a fire, the castle was rebuilt in the 12th century, with a dungeon made up of two towers. In the 13th century, the seigneury was divided between the two sons of Philippe d'Abbans: Guillaume inherited the "castle behind", while Richard had the "castle built in front". In 1290 Richard's daughter gave her share to Jean de Chalon-Arlay.

In 1484 Jacques Jouffroy, marrying Anne de Joux, became the owner of Abbans-derière. The oldest elements of the present castle date from the 14th and 16th centuries. In the 18th century, the Marquis Claude-François de Jouffroy d'Abbans, grandfather of the inventor Claude-François-Dorothée, bought Abbans in ruins and began its rehabilitation. His son, Claude-Jean-Eugène, gave the castle its present appearance. It was in this place that Claude-François-Dorothée de Jouffroy d'Abbans designed in 1776 one of his first steamboats. The castle remained in the Jouffroy d'Abbans family for five centuries.

The castle features a 12th century quadrangular dungeon and "Louis XI" woodwork on the ground floor. The gallery and the large hall house portraits of the Marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans, dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, including those of Anne de Joux and Cardinal Jouffroy. The park includes two-hundred-year-old lime trees and Lebanese cedar trees planted in the early twentieth century. Ranked and inscribed in the Historical Monuments since the 1950s and 1990, the castle includes protected elements such as the dungeon, portrait gallery, house body, commons and garden.

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