Château du Repas, Medieval castle in Putanges-le-Lac, France.
The Château du Repas is a stone castle complex in Chênedouit, within the commune of Putanges-le-Lac, Normandy. Its light brown masonry walls and steep dark grey slate roofs are arranged around a taller central section with four round turrets at its corners. A lower wing with dormer windows extends to the left, and a shorter turreted wing continues to the right. The castle stands behind a grass field enclosed by a wooden fence.
The castle was built in the early 17th century by Nicolas Sallet, a gentleman of the king's chamber, on the foundations of an older manor from the 15th century. This expansion shows the development of the building over two hundred years.
The name Repas appears in 14th-century pouillés of the diocese of Séez as "Repastus", alongside "Sanctus Julianus militum". Henri Dontenville recorded a legend that the castle keeps the memory of a dinner of the giant Gargantua, echoed by the nearby Pierre à Gargantua; no older explanation is documented. The Le Verrier arms bore a boar's head, a pun on "d'hure...pas".
The castle stands behind a grass field enclosed by a wooden fence, so the facades and slate roofs are seen from the public road rather than from inside the grounds. The building is a monument historique inscrit since 1967 and remains in private hands; visits and photography inside the property depend on the owners' agreement, arranged beforehand.
The round staircase tower at the centre of the rear facade is the only surviving part of the 15th-century fortified manor that stood here before the present building. Michel Le Verrier was already styled seigneur du Repas around 1450, and the tower was kept when the new house was raised on the old foundations.
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