Domaine de Grammont, Heritage castle in Montpellier, France.
Domaine de Grammont is a 90-hectare estate east of Montpellier, on the left bank of the Lez at the edge of Saint-Aunès. Its château has a pale mottled stone facade with a four-column portico and iron balustrade above the central block, a slate-roofed coursed-stone wing, and a double stone stairway descending to the foreground. Of the Grandmont priory buildings, only the chapter house remains.
In 1174 the Grandmontines settled on land belonging to the cathedral chapter of Maguelone, founding the priory of Notre-Dame-de-Montaubérou; the chapel was built around 1180 and its chevet reworked in 1225. Pope John XXII raised it to a priory for 17 religious and attached three small monasteries. Partly ruined in the 16th-century Wars of Religion, it was given to the Montpellier seminary in 1701 and sold as national property in 1790. General Charles de Frégeville owned it from 1796 to 1821, then his son-in-law Ambroise-Jacques Bricogne; the west wing was rebuilt in the first quarter of the 19th century.
The chapel, now called Sainte-Philothée, is used for Greek Orthodox worship by the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of France, under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The chapel was rebuilt in 1895–1897 by architect Pierre Arribat, with sculpture by Auguste Baussan and stained glass by Louis-Charles-Marie Champigneulle.
The city of Montpellier now manages the estate and makes it available for public events and recreational use. Visitors should note that some areas may be reserved for private occasions like weddings.
At the highest point of the fitness trail in the pine wood stands Hécate et Cerbère, an 1866 marble by the sculptor Marcello. Commissioned by Napoleon III, it stayed in Paris before being assigned to Montpellier in 1889, stood on the Promenade du Peyrou, moved to Celleneuve in 1956, and was reinstalled here in 1986, mutilated but visible.
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