Under Restoration Since 2013

Autrefois As it was

As It Was

A fort recorded in 1213, a château built from 1741 to designs by Gabriel, and eight centuries in between: the whole story is on its own page.

The history of Gudanes

La restauration, pas à pas The restoration, step by step

Restoring the Château

The restoration is the family's own, room by room.

• Saving the Structure

  When it was bought the château was classified as a ruin, with small trees growing from the slate. The first work, in 2014, was consolidation: the floors, walls and ceilings were secured before anything else, and the château was given a new roof and new windows.

• Floors That Had Fallen

  In the kitchen the whole floor had fallen through, its old ovens lying on the level below. In the dining room the stone floor was close to going, and an eighteenth-century marble mantel, its marble quarried in the neighbouring Aude, hung by a thread; beneath the stone lay chestnut beams, split logs and talc to keep out the damp. Both rooms now stand on steel and concrete, as the Historic Monuments required, hidden in the dining room by a traditional French beamed ceiling.

• Power and Water, from the Road

  All the electricity and plumbing is new: brought up from the road through a large trench, then run throughout the château, with water and waste connected to the village supply. Until it reached them, many rooms were lit by candle.

• That First Winter

  In the winter of 2014 there was still no electricity, heating or water. The first nights in the château were spent in a tent, pitched inside one of the rooms against the cold.

• Stone, Slate and Parquet

  The original eighteenth-century stone floor was lifted during the consolidation, stored, and laid again in the vestibule, and the original slate of one bedroom was kept to be used again. The rooms upstairs now have reclaimed antique Versailles parquetry.

• Mouldings, Cast Again

  In the Chambre du Parc the floors and ceilings had fallen through four levels. Every one of its original mouldings had to be cast and recreated.

• What the Walls Gave Back

  When what remained of one plaster ceiling fell, the original hand-painted Renaissance beams were found beneath it, and Renaissance frescoes under the wall plaster, among them what is believed to be the château as it once was, beside the bridge that can still be seen from the window. Wax seals from the French Revolution are still on centuries-old walnut doors, and eighteenth-century painted walls have come to light behind later panelling. In another room, cream paint came away to reveal an eighteenth-century fresco. Elsewhere were the hatches of hiding places used by a family during the Second World War.

• Original Wallpaper, Printed Again

  Where large pieces of the original wallpaper were lost, it has been made again. In one of the Family Suite’s bedrooms, the original paper has been printed anew by the company that first made it, from its original templates. Smaller gaps are left bare, to keep the patina.

• Glass Restored

  The two great windows of the vestibule have been restored by a specialist in stained glass, and the painted windows of the chapel, beneath its vaulted ceiling of gold stars on midnight blue.

• Beneath the Château

  A tunnel runs six metres underground, under a vaulted ceiling; its floor has still not been found. Local legend has an owner escaping down it in a barrel during the War of the Demoiselles, around 1830.

• The Bathrooms, Made to Come Away

  Built in 2019 in the room the 1970s holiday camp had used, where water could be brought up from the level below. A French ceiling hides the steel and concrete put in to stabilise the building, and the walls are panelled rather than touched, so that one day the bathrooms could be taken out and leave the medieval walls as they were. The doors are walnut from trees that fell in the park; the hinges and locks were saved from the rubble or found at antique markets; the floor is reclaimed eighteenth-century terracotta. The Historic Monuments service came to see them, and gave its blessing.

• The Attics, Still Under Way

  At the back of the château, in its medieval and Renaissance part, the attics are being made into rooms: new walls, doors and staircases, the plaster repaired and the beams stained. In the front, the neoclassical part, an old set of French windows was taken down and reused as the door to another attic.

• What Could Be Saved

  As much as possible has been kept and used again. Much of it was rubble, but what was found, from doorknobs to roof tiles, has been reused or kept in the cellars. A long table was made from trees the wind brought down on the grounds.

Monument historique A Historic Monument

French Heritage Law

What a Historic Monument Is

In France, the buildings that matter most to the nation's history and art are protected by law as monuments historiques. The protection goes back to a law of 1913, and it comes at two levels.

Château de Gudanes is classé, and has been a Historic Monument since 1994. In practice, that means:

• Classé

  Class I

  The highest protection French law gives a building

• Autorisé

  Approved first

  Every intervention authorised in advance by the State's heritage services

• Les métiers

  The old trades

  Plaster, joinery, gilding, paint and paper, done as they were done

• Conservé

  Kept, not replaced

  Original stone, timber and paper repaired wherever they can be