Hameau de Chantilly, Folly in the castle park, Chantilly, France

The Hameau de Chantilly is a folly of seven rustic thatched cottages in the park of the Château de Chantilly, built in 1774. Five survive: le Salon, le Billard, la Salle à manger, la Cuisine and le Moulin; l'Étable and le Cabinet de lecture are gone. Their half-timbered white walls, steep thatch and brick chimneys imitate eastern Normandy farmhouses.

Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé, had architect Jean-François Leroy build seven rustic cottages in the park of Château de Chantilly in 1774, two years after work began on the adjoining Anglo-Chinese garden. The hamlet's success inspired Marie-Antoinette's Hameau de la Reine at the Petit Trianon in Versailles. The Revolution spared it, and the Duc d'Aumale restored it after returning to Chantilly in 1870.

The cottages' names record their role in the prince's summer entertainments: le Salon, le Billard, la Salle à manger, la Cuisine, le Moulin, l'Étable and le Cabinet de lecture. Music, dancing and fireworks once accompanied suppers here. The mill now serves as the restaurant Aux Goûters Champêtres, and a 4,000 m² maze stands nearby.

The hamlet stands in the eastern part of the Château de Chantilly park, near a 4,000 m² maze laid out beside it. The mill houses the Aux Goûters Champêtres refreshment stop, and boat trips on the Grand Canal are offered each summer. Only five of the seven cottages remain, so the group is small and seen on foot.

In 1787 Bathilde d'Orléans, whose main residence was the Château de Chantilly, built a similar hamlet in the gardens of the Élysée Palace in Paris. The five surviving cottages are named le Salon, le Billard, la Salle à manger, la Cuisine and le Moulin; l'Étable and le Cabinet de lecture no longer stand.