Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Ferme du Touchet is a typical Beauceronne farmhouse, organised around a rectangular central courtyard. Its buildings, mainly built in limestone and sandstone, illustrate a medieval agricultural architecture adapted to the region. The eastern access gate, with a carriage door in the middle of the hangar and a pedestrian door decorated with a trilobed tympanum, as well as the two-pore barn to the west, testify to its functional organization from the thirteenth century. A wooden carretery and a small 16th-century door complete this set, reflecting subsequent additions and changes.

Under the house, a vaulted cellar is the oldest element of the site, with rooms dated between the 14th and 16th centuries. Two rooms carry a Maltese cross carved on their vault key, suggesting a link with the Hospitallers of the Commandery nearby Chauffour. The cellar, partially renovated in the 17th–15th centuries, combines sandstone dinghy vaults and limestone bellows, while its access has evolved with the addition of a vaulted hall in the middle of the hangar. These architectural details indicate continuous site occupancy and adaptation.

Agricultural buildings, some of which appear on the Napoleonic cadastre, were enriched in the 19th century, while the house underwent major transformations in the 20th century. The portal, classified as Historical Monument in 1931, and the crosses of Malta in the cellar underline the historical importance of the site, linked to both Beauceronne agriculture and the order of the Hospitallers. The farm thus embodies centuries of rural and religious history in Île-de-France.

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