Château de Kéranroux, Castle in Morlaix, Finistère, France

Château de Kéranroux is a three-storey stone building with a grey slate roof, built in a classical style of absolute symmetry. A central block with a triangular pediment and taller hipped roof is flanked by two identical four-bay wings, each ending in a chimney; two more chimneys stand on the central roof. The projecting granite entrance door, bearing the arms of Paul de Champagny and his wife, is reached by a curved stone staircase that encircles a statue and ends in a terrace above the park.

The land belonged to Yvon de Keranroux, said to have been charged in 1301 by Henri V, count of Léon, with maintaining the Cuburien forest. In 1543 Alain de la Forest bought the estate, which stayed with his descendants for four centuries. In 1773 François Gabriel de la Fruglaye inherited a dilapidated 17th-century manor and built the present castle between 1773 and 1774 on higher ground. His son Paul Émile, a dragoon officer, fled France in 1792 after trying to free Madame Royale from the Temple prison and returned in 1802.

Marie de la Fruglaye had the chapel built between 1839 and 1843; its gargoyles depict boars, monkeys and dragons. She is buried there, having tended local people during the 1832 cholera epidemic, when the castle served as a hospital. Allied bombing destroyed the stained glass and damaged the columns. Outside lies the 17th-century recumbent effigy of Gilles de la Noé, carved by Roland Doré.

The castle stands 2.8 km north-west of Morlaix town centre, and its large park has been freely open since the Beaufort family's time. Inside the grounds visitors can find the fountain of the fairies, the mill ruins, the old washhouse and the ruins of the Notre-Dame de la Clarté chapel.

The dovecote northeast of the castle is the only one in the commune of Ploujean, built in the 16th century of schist with bands of pink granite. Allied bombing spared it, as the airmen believed the German occupiers stored ammunition there.