Aujourd'hui Aujourd'hui (≈ 2025)
Position de référence.
Heritage classified
Building of the castle including the wings in return adjacent to it and the southern communes; Pigeon; building of the northern communes symmetrical to the building of the southern communes (Box D 26, 29p): classification by decree of 23 October 1964; Floors and plantations of gardens, the courtyard of honor, the forecourt and the vegetable garden, including walls, the grill, the hopping, statues; floor of the courtyard and pond; facades and roofs of the farm house, sheepfold and cartyard; barn and press building, including stacking tower (cad. D 23-26, 28, 30, 203-206): registration by order of 22 April 1991
Key figures
Famille Le Sens de Folleville - Owners and sponsors
Builders of the estate in the 16th and 18th centuries.
Isaac Le Sens - Local Lord
Arms on the dovecote (early 16th).
Origin and history
The Launay Castle, built around 1735 in Saint-Georges-du-Vever in the Eure, is an emblematic example of Louis XV architecture. It replaces an older seigneurial ensemble, whose outbuildings remain like a wooden dovecoier dating back to the early 16th century, decorated with the arms of the family Le Sens de Folleville. This dovecote, dismantled and restored in Caen around 1940, bears witness to the symbolic importance of seigneurial constructions in the Lieuvin, an area marked by an influential land aristocracy.
The reconstruction of the main house in the 18th century is part of a modernization campaign led by the family Le Sens de Folleville, already owner of the premises since the 16th century. The lower wings connecting the central body to the pavilions, added in the middle of the eighteenth century, complete to structure the architectural ensemble. In the north, only in the 20th century will one of these be completed, reflecting the successive adaptations of the estate to the needs of its occupants.
Ranked a historic monument in 1964 for its main buildings (castle, dovecote, commons) and registered in 1991 for its gardens, walls and agricultural outbuildings, the estate illustrates the evolution of seigneurial and then bourgeois practices in Normandy. The French gardens, built after the Second World War, and the natural site classified since 1964 underline the desire to preserve a landscape consistent with the history of the place.
The protected elements also include agricultural infrastructure (press, barn, sheepfold), revealing the economic organization of the estate. The cartage and its piling tower, tools typical of Norman farms, recall the central role of these ensembles in local production. Today, the estate is privately owned, thus keeping track of a missing social and economic system, where seigneurial power, land exploitation and community life were mixed.
The architectural complex, combining limestone, brick and cut stone, reflects the traditional materials of the region, while the slate or flat tile roofs reflect local know-how. The dovecote, symbol of seigneurial privilege, and the wood-pan commons recall the social hierarchies of the Old Regime, where each element of the domain had a precise function in the organization of power and production.
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