Château de Beaufief, French castle in Mazeray, France.

Château de Beaufief is a one-storey castle in Mazeray, rebuilt on a smaller scale in 1768, with a central pavilion topped by a triangular pediment and a slate pyramid roof added in the 19th century. Its two symmetrical side wings are curved in an arc, and the west end holds a small Louis XV chapel. The axial entrance crosses an avant-cour and a cour laid out as a French garden, whose parterre design is marked by eight box balls.

No documented lord of Beaufief appears before the reign of Henri III; the earliest trace is Jean d'Abillon, mayor of Saint-Jean-d'Angély in 1582. A first castle dated from the 16th century and was rebuilt on a smaller scale in 1768, when Charlotte de Collincourt sold the noble house to René-Joseph-Benoît Perraudeau, a lawyer in parliament. His family kept it for about a century, until 1896.

The name is pronounced "Beaufié" locally. The chapel at the west end is in Louis XV style, and its stuccos are among the elements listed as monuments historiques in 1973, along with the dining-room fireplace and the upstairs salon woodwork. The dovecote is a round fuie with 17th-century dormers, and its door once bore the Collincourt coat of arms.

The castle is a private residence, so visits must be arranged in advance with the owners rather than turning up at the gate. The axial drive runs straight through the woods, park and garden to the entrance court, giving a clear line of approach to the facade.

The dovecote is a round fuie whose dormer windows date from the 17th century; its door was once topped by the arms of the Collincourt family. The eight box shrubs still mark the parterre layout of the French garden, unchanged since the beginning. The pyramidal slate roof over the pediment is probably a 19th-century addition, not part of the original design.