Garden of the château de Marqueyssac, Historic garden in Vézac, France
The garden of Château de Marqueyssac is a landscaped site in Vézac featuring approximately 150,000 hand-trimmed boxwood plants arranged along 6 kilometers of paths on a rocky promontory above the Dordogne. The hedges form continuous patterns and shapes while pathways traverse the entire grounds.
The garden was laid out by Julien de Cerval after 1861, when he returned from Italy, where he had fought for the Papal States from 1849. He planted boxwood topped with cypress and dotted with Naples cyclamen around an 18th-century castle. After World War II the owners could no longer maintain it; Kléber Rossillon took over the estate and its upkeep in 1996, and the gardens opened to the public in March 1997.
The garden reflects French landscape design principles through its geometric patterns and carefully arranged hedges. Visitors can observe how regional horticultural traditions shape the way this space is laid out and maintained.
An electric shuttle service operates from April to September, making it easy to explore different areas of the grounds. Multiple refreshment areas and parking facilities for visitors with reduced mobility are available throughout the site.
In December 2016, Kléber Rossillon bought an almost complete Allosaurus skeleton at auction, a North American theropod from the Late Jurassic, and put it on display in a pavilion in the park. The garden also holds a neo-Gothic chapel and stone rest huts among the boxwoods.
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