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Origin and history

The Château de Vérigny, located 15 km northwest of Chartres in the department of Eure-et-Loir, consists of a body of classic houses built after 1750, preceded by a court of honor and surrounded by dry moats. Its facades, adorned with corner chains and brick frames, contrast with the interior sobriety, where sculpted woodwork and a lounge at the top of the door representing children's games remain. The estate includes exceptional commons from the 16th and 17th centuries, organized around a walled courtyard, with a tidal barn with brick-lined walls and a circular dovecote with triple rows of holes.

The history of the estate dates back to the 15th century with the lords of the O, including Charles of O (died 1568), who had the local church repaired. The seigneury then passed to the family of La Vieuville in the 17th century, marked by Charles de La Vieuville, the Superintendent of Finance of Louis XIII, dismissed by Richelieu and sentenced to exile. In the 18th century, Charles-Bernard Brochet de La Fortemaison acquired the estate in 1750 and built there the present castle, separated from the old outbuildings. His nephew, Charles Brochet de Saint-Prest, was guillotineed in 1794, but the castle escaped revolutionary destruction.

The communes, classified with the castle, bear witness to the medieval seigneurial organization: the tithe barn was used for the storage of taxes in nature, while the dovecote, symbol of seigneurial right, housed hundreds of pigeons. The park, created between 1755 and 1765, and the dry moat underline the aristocratic status of the place. In 1975, facades, roofs, and some interiors (antechamber, living room) were inscribed in the Historical Monuments, preserving this emblematic heritage of the Perche.

The original mansion, mentioned in 1480, was a fortified residence typical of the Perch, with corner tower, pond and wall of enclosure. A deal passed that year described a half-timbered house body, later replaced by a stone mansion. In 1650, the estate included an "old manable house" and a farm, before being transformed into a modern castle under Brochet de La Fortemaison. The archives reveal an active seigneurial life, with high and low justice, and feudal rights abolished in 1790.

In the 19th century, the castle changed hands several times: acquired in 1876 by Louis-Jean-François Camusit, it then passed to the Monteynard and Bouillé families of Chariol. The cadastral descriptions of 1830 and the maps of the 19th century document the evolution of the estate, where the old avenue d'ormes and the "wood of the old park" recall the spatial organization of the Ancien Régime. Today, the castle, partially open to the visit, retains its historic character despite successive transformations.

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