Ambleville · Val-d’Oise
The terraced gardens of Ambleville
Ambleville’s walled garden rises in terraces below a château of the early sixteenth and eighteenth centuries; its present Italianate form dates from 1928.
From the source
Château d'Ambleville is a château at Ambleville, Val-d'Oise, in the Île-de-France region of France. The recorded building campaigns date from the 16th, 17th, 18th and 20th centuries. Its architecture is recorded as Renaissance architecture. It is protected as a monument historique at the higher of the two levels (classé). Details are drawn from the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture.
Editorial reading
The record traces the garden’s history unusually well. Essentially a kitchen garden until the mid-eighteenth century, the walled enclosure was first laid out in the English manner, with water features and groves. In 1928 it took its present Italian character: the middle terrace imitates the water parterre of the Villa Gamberaia near Florence, the upper terrace draws on a painting by Paul Brill kept at the Villa Artena near Rome. In front of the house, an alignment from the end of the Ancien Régime leads the eye to an open view over the valley. A radiating pattern of hedges and a chequerboard of topiary evoking a chess game were added in the 1980s. A greenhouse, a foot-bath and an orchard complete the ensemble, which was listed in 2006 together with its enclosure walls.
Recommendation
Few gardens let you read three centuries of taste in three terraces: kitchen garden, English park, Tuscan villa.
Sources
Base Mérimée — immeubles protégés · PA00079974 — Licence Ouverte / Open Licence 2.0 (Etalab) — Ministère de la Culture, base Mérimée
Wikimedia Commons · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Ambleville3.JPG — CC BY-SA 2.5
The château by this garden
Discover the architecture and history of this place at Le Roi du Château.
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