Castle of Gast Island en Mayenne

Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Château de l'Ile-du-Gast, located in Saint-Fraimbault-de-Prières in Mayenne, was built between 1626 and 1629 for the Ile family. This house body, flanked by four pavilions, incorporates an ogival porch from an earlier mansion. It dominates the Mayenne valley, fed by sources captured from the hillsides. A chapel dedicated to Saint Geneviève, founded in 1506 and enlarged in 1532, adjoins the building. The site was a moving fiefdom of Fontaine-Daniel Abbey, with fishing rights contested in the 17th century.

The castle became a high place of regional Protestantism under Benjamin de l'Isle, who built there a preaching room for the Reformed Church. In 1678, his refusal to recognize the fishing rights of the abbey led to the temporary confiscation of the estate. After decades of tension, including the assassination of a monk in 1793, the castle passed to the families of Heland and then to the Daughters of Charity in 1875. The latter founded an asylum for orphans, renamed Saint George's-de-l'Isle in tribute to Georges d'Héliand, who died in 1860.

The chapel, rebuilt in 1878, replaced a medieval building reconciled in 1703 after the Protestant period. The mill, strengthened 67 pounds in 1567, illustrates the economic activity associated with the river. Occupied by royal dragons in the 17th century, the castle embodies the religious and seigneurial struggles of the Mayenne before devoting itself to charitable works in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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