Communes and Parc de La Thibaudière
The castle, partially burned down during the Battle of Ponts-de-Cé (1793), was restructured with operations more or less happy by three architects (the contractor François Leroy in 1822, Sébastien Dellêtre (1802-64) around 1846, and finally René Hodé (1861-64). The latter added a chapel in 1856-57 in the Neo-Gothic style with splendid stained glass windows (under restoration). The former factory-manufacture of sails of the eighteenth century is razed to be replaced by a set of common-farm model, a phalanstery very fashionable in the middle of the nineteenth century. The landscape architect Paul de Lavenne, Comte de Choulot*, (1794-1864) radically transformed the regular park into an English-style, romantic landscape park (comparisons of Napoleonic and contemporary cadastres, Choulot’s plan are particularly explicit). The park is classified as Sites (1975). The commons (1ha) are organized around a large aviary of bricks, stones and slates placed in the center of an inner courtyard. The tradition is that we were inspired by the commons of Scarisbrick Hill (Leicester) in a very neat Anglo-Norman style (half-timbering painted in facades). Two large porches with pointed wooden doors give access to the inner courtyard. It has two functional poles. To the south of the courtyard, in the building called the Clock, the "cavalry" (six boxes-stalls for horses, the saddlery, the carriage shed and, on the floor, the rooms of the grooms and granaries for fodder. Facing this elegant building, the model farm with its many functions (wine, dairy, wood, care of the draught horse on the right and cattle on the left, hitches, pigs, bakery, laundry, two large haylofts and the kennel). The property had 1,800 hectares and employed more than three hundred people scattered in the many farms of the estate (Les Mazuaux, la Pironnière, la Fresnaye, Clos-Prune, le Petit Mesnil et le Grand Mesnil, Virloin, etc...). Around this square courtyard, the facades are treated with particular care: play of the rosé of the brick and the whiteness of the tuffeau, false symmetry, decorations of openwork woodwork, balcony sills and corbels. The original plans and accounts of works have disappeared (except for some drawings of elevations) but comparisons with other funds, in particular that of the castle of Rouvotz by Sébastien Dellêtre (1802-64) The Thibaudière was built in the middle of the century. The plan of the park realized then does not show the commons that we see now but there is little doubt that their construction had to be done soon after. To avoid the rapid disappearance due to the fragility of such ensembles (to name but a few: the Chiquetière, the Briau Palace, Challain la Potherie...), the complex is protected under the title of Historical Monuments in parallel with the program of reuse developed and announced by the owner and this, without affecting the classification of the park under the title of Sites as it exists. Remarkable trees, indigenous and exotic species, parts of water according to the slope of the land, great prospects, lawns opening on the agricultural environment, small Temple to the Renaissance Ancient (built in 1583), Pigeonnier of the seventeenth, 18th century orangery and model farm from the beginning of the 19th century, inscribed in the Inventory of Historical Monuments, ISMH, vegetable garden (in the state of wasteland) walled (also ISMH). A site protected from the urban and industrial environment of our time, an invitation to reflect on nature and the preservation of biodiversity.
*Count de Choulot (1774-1863) advocated a new concept for agricultural and landscape parks. His approach was "minimalist". Between 1840 and 1860, nearly thirty-five parks were built in the region by the Comte de Choulot, attributed or whose creation he would have strongly inspired. One of the main principles of Choulot in the design of its parks, is to create visual links between the interior of the properties and the surrounding landscape: "What matters in the composition, it is the greatness: for lack of reality, it is necessary to at least give birth to the idea (…) Art must break through these impenetrable ramparts with the eye (green walls) and make wide openings that allow the country to penetrate there and mix the scenes of nature with the paintings created by the artist".