The French gardens and park of Chenonceau

Chenonceau, the Renaissance house built on the Cher for Thomas Bohier and shaped by Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de Médicis, is set among jardins à la française and a park whose buildings include the Dômes and the orangery; the park was classified in 1962.

From the source

Domaine de Chenonceau is a château at Chenonceaux, Indre-et-Loire, in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France. The recorded building campaigns date from the 15th and 16th centuries. 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.

Mentioned in the source: visit · museum · garden

Editorial reading

The record tells the succession — Bohier’s new house of 1521 on the site of a mill, Philibert Delorme’s bridge over the Cher for Diane de Poitiers in 1555, the gallery raised on it by Catherine de Médicis, and Louise de Lorraine’s mourning — and describes one of the first Renaissance houses of pleasure in France, its defensive features turned to ornament. It closes on the grounds: the domain is adorned with French formal gardens and a park containing various buildings, among them the Dômes, the orangery and a farm court of stone and timber-framed buildings. The château is classified since 1840; the park, spreading over three communes, since 1962. The garden of Catherine de Médicis, photographed here, is one of those formal gardens.

Recommendation

Two queens, two gardens, one on each bank of the approach: Chenonceau is the place to compare them side by side.

The château by this garden

Discover the architecture and history of this place at Le Roi du Château.

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The French gardens and park of Chenonceau

From the source

Editorial reading

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The château by this garden