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Origin and history

The Manor of the Perrière, built before the 13th century by a rural or knight lord, illustrates Anglo-Saxon medieval architecture with its three naves joined. Located in Voivres-lès-le-Mans (Sarthe), it was initially used as a seigneurial home on a farm. Its structure, marked by a large room under exposed structure and wings in appentis, reflects a typical organization of the era, with chimneys aligned in the drip walls.

The current 18th-century structure would have replaced an earlier structure destroyed during the disturbances related to the revocation of the edict of Nantes (1698). The mansion is also associated with local Protestant history: the noble family of Champagnes, lords of La Suze, would have introduced Calvinist celebrations. Its subsequent agricultural use, notably as a barn in the seventeenth century, paradoxically allowed its preservation despite the wars.

Today, the manor house is the subject of safeguard projects carried out by academics and the Association for the Study of Sarthian Heritage. Priorities include structural and roof repair, as well as facilities to facilitate access. A call for sponsorship was made to finance this work under the French law on patronage. The site, occupied by farmers for nearly a thousand years, embodies the permanent adaptation of the rural heritage.

Historical studies, such as those of Philippe Bouton (1998) or Marie Ève Scheffer (2004), highlight its importance in understanding the seigneurial non-castelain habitat of the Western Sarthois. The manor is one of the few material testimonies of the small rural aristocracy of the 12th–14th centuries, justifying the efforts for its development and protection.

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