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Origin and history

The Château de La Brosse, located in Nottonville in the Centre-Val de Loire region, is a building whose communes were built between 1770 and 1787, as evidenced by two preserved plans. These commons form two wings opposite, framing a court of honor with a forebody untied westward. They are now the only remains of this construction campaign, the main body of the castle having been destroyed by fire in the 19th century. The south wing, rearranged as a farm body, lost some of its authenticity.

The castle was acquired in 1755 by Jean François de La Borde, former farmer general and usufructier of the seigneury of Mémillon, for the sum of 200,000 pounds. He ended his days there, marking the history of the estate. After its disappearance, the site underwent transformation, including the degradation of the south wing and the loss of the main house. In 1990, the remaining elements — the two wings of the communes, the courtyard with its hemicycle bounded by a ditch and a grid, as well as two turrets surrounding the entrance — were inscribed in the Historical Monuments.

Nottonville, a rural town in Eure-et-Loir, has two protected monuments among its architectural heritage: the Abbey of the Woods (classified in 1988) and the Château de La Brosse. The latter, although partially disappeared, bears witness to the aristocratic domestic architecture of the second half of the eighteenth century, a period marked in Beauce by an economy still largely agricultural. The presence of the Goure de Spoy, a natural reservoir feeding the Conia, and the surrounding megalithic remains (such as the dolmen of the Palet de Gargantua) recall the deep historical anchor of this territory.

The site is part of a landscape shaped by the resurgences of the Beauce table, with intermittent streams like the Conie, made perennial from the Goure de Spoy. This hydrographic context, coupled with an ancient human occupation (attested by the 11th century with the Priory of the Wood), underscores the strategic importance of Nottonville, between natural resources and seigneurial heritage. The castle, although reduced to its outbuildings, remains a marker of this prestigious past.

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