Cycling Highlight
Recommended by 6 cyclists
This Highlight is in a protected area
Please check local regulations for: Parc naturel régional de l'Avesnois
Location: Liessies, Avesnes-Sur-Helpe, Hauts-De-France, France
Built in the 18th century, Château de la Motte was originally a farm belonging to Liessies Abbey, used as a retirement home and infirmary for the monks. The structure was supposedly erected in 1725, but a bluestone lintel bears the date 1755.
The château, long owned by the Lhomme family, was divided in two around 1925. A large bourgeois house next to the farm became a hotel-restaurant, which in 1936 was run by the Soufflet de Fourmies family, grandparents of Franck Plateau, the current owner. In the 1980s, Mrs. Plateau (Frank's mother) and her two sisters continued to run the hotel restaurant, which was taken over by Franck Plateau and his wife in 2000.
All the buildings are constructed of brick for the entire walls, and bluestone and local marble for the window frames, chains, bands, and cornices. From the pond, the plan appears simple: U-shaped, with a square tower rising in the center of the horizontal beam of this U. The two buildings forming the parallel sides are pierced by a cart door, which leads to the open courtyard overlooking the pond. The entrance to the dwelling is located on the ground floor of the two-story tower, which is crowned with a picturesque roof in three distinct volumes: the four upright sides, in inverted cavettes, with skylights, are extended by a vertical, rectangular, closed campanile, itself crowned by an inverted pavilion. The water from the forge was used to power machinery. At the foot of the dike, a dovecote dominates, with a roof barely simpler than that of the castle tower. Some of the old buildings are characteristic of the construction of this region.
July 31, 2023
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