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Origin and history

Venevelles Manor House, also known as Venevelles Castle, is a 15th-century building located in Luché-Pringé, Sarthe (Land of the Loire). Located in the valley of the Aune, it was rebuilt after the Hundred Years' War by the family of Espaigne, which made it a Calvinist bastion in the 17th century under the impulse of Henri-Paul d'Espaigne and his wife Suzanne Le Vasseur. The estate, surrounded by moat and equipped with a 16th-century chapel, illustrates the architectural evolution of the mansions in seigneurial residence.

The site, occupied from the 11th century, derives its name from the Gaulish verna (aulne) and val (valley), reflecting its position at the confluence of the Aune and Casseau. In the Middle Ages, it served as a strategic defence point between Maine, Anjou and Touraine, controlling access to the Loir Valley. The first known lords, such as Algerius de Venevelles (thirteenth century monks), gave way to the Spanish from the 13th century, a family that kept the estate until the Revolution.

In the 17th century, Henri-Paul of Espaigne, Governor of Belfort and Marquis of Venevelles, and Suzanne Le Vasseur transformed the mansion into a high place of regional Protestantism. Their son, ruined, sold part of the land before the castle was confiscated as national property in 1799. In the 19th century, he passed into the hands of bourgeois (Lebaigue, Brémond) then artists, like the Japanese painter Toyosaku Saïto (1926). Saved by Norbert Dufourcq in the 1960s, he was enrolled in the Historical Monuments in 1963.

The architecture combines a 15th century house in square, flanked by two turrets (including the "Huguenotière"), a 1503 chapel with Plantagenet vaults, and pavilions from the 16th-17th centuries. The 16th century farm, the honorary court and the moat (partly filled in the 19th century) complete the whole. A network of underground galleries, possibly linked to the château de la Grifferie, is mentioned by the sources.

The Revolution marked a turning point: Henri-Jacques d'Espaigne, last seigneur, emigrated and the estate was sold as a national good. He briefly recovered by his widow in 1802, changed his hands several times before being restored by Norbert Dufourcq, who devoted 30 years to it and published a major historical study on seigneury. Today, the mansion bears witness to seven centuries of history, between seigneurial power, religious conflicts and heritage preservation.

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