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Origin and history

Château de Réville is a castle in the Manche department, Normandy, 200 metres southwest of the Saint-Martin church. First called Pirou's fief in the 14th century, it was looted in 1405 by the English troops of Henry V, then left in ruins after the Hundred Years' War. In 1528, it was described as "for half demolished and half destroyed". On July 9, 1591, during the Wars of Religion, François de la Cour (sieur du Tourps) set fire to it with his company of 150 men, killing Guillaume Binet in front of the entrance. The reconstruction began around 1640 under the Quétil, and was completed in 1695 by André Fouquet, who reused materials from the nearby church and cemetery.

In the 18th century, a pavilion housing a Louis XV lounge was added (1737–39). The castle then passed to the family of the Park: Constantin du Parc de Barville (1759–33), M.P. for the Manche, retired there, and Henri Charles Timoleon of the Park died there in 1877. During the Second World War, he was successively occupied by the French Army (1939), the Wehrmacht (1940–1944), then the Allies (Royal Air Force and Royal Navy). Damaged by five fires, he lost his oak floors, marble chimneys and glass from Tourlaville, broken by American troops.

Architecturally, the castle combines a 17th-century house body (with a double-revolution staircase) and a Louis XV style pavilion. The common dates from the end of the seventeenth century. The only medieval vestige, the dovecote carries a 1714 armored stone with the arms of Fouquet and Crosville. The ensemble (façades, roofs, dovecote, entrance gate) has been listed as historical monuments since 5 September 1997.

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