Courances · Essonne
The ordered park and waters of Courances
Courances, south of Paris, is a seventeenth-century château set in a walled, ordered park whose waters — canals, moats and basins — were classified with the house in 1983.
From the source
Château de Courances is a château at Courances, Essonne, in the Île-de-France region of France. The recorded building campaign dates from the 17th century. 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 gives no narrative, but its protection describes the garden with unusual care: the ordered park, enclosed by walls, with its pièces d’eau, including the moats and the former fulling mill; the access avenue in the axis of the cour d’honneur façade; the two pavilions on the edge of the moats and the two outside stairs of the outbuildings. Water is the substance of Courances, fed by springs and channelled into canals and mirrors; the classification of 1983 treats that water as the monument.
Recommendation
Walk the long canal under the plane trees: the park is ordered, but it is the water that orders it.
Sources
Base Mérimée — immeubles protégés · PA00087871 — Licence Ouverte / Open Licence 2.0 (Etalab) — Ministère de la Culture, base Mérimée
Wikimedia Commons · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Courances%20chateau%20cote%20cour.jpg — CC BY-SA 1.0
The château by this garden
Discover the architecture and history of this place at Le Roi du Château.
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