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Origin and history

The Vieux-Château des Essarts, locally known as the Vieux-Château, is a building in ruins located in the town of Essarts, in the Vendée department, in the Pays-de-la-Loire region. It consists of the remains of a feudal castle built from the 12th and 13th centuries, completed by a Renaissance house in the 16th century. These ruins, distinct from the "new castle" built in the nearby 19th century, bear witness to a continuous occupation from a castral mott after a Roman sacrificial motte (IXth–XI centuries). The pentagonal enclosure, flanked by square towers such as the Sarrazine tower (donjon), and the entrance chestnuts, one of which consists of two horse iron towers, illustrate its medieval defensive architecture.

The site belonged to several nobility families, including Aspremont, Chabot, Vivonne, La Rochefoucauld, Lespinay and Rougé. Currently private property, it has been classified as a historical monument since 1962 for its ruins and since 1971 for the portal of the former Romanesque church of Essarts, integrated into the park. The latter, designed by the Bühler brothers on 25 hectares, completes the whole. In 2002, Viscount Jacques de Rougé founded the Association Les Amis du Vieux-Château des Essarts to enhance the site and its history.

Architectural transformations, such as the addition of mâchicoulis and scaffolds in the 14th–15th centuries, reflect the evolution of defensive needs. The medieval castle, with its two drawbridges (charter and pedestrian) and its seigneurial house, backed by the enclosure, shows a spatial organization typical of the fortresses of the period. The curved shape of the enclosure to the northwest recalls the location of the ancient castral mound, now extinct.

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