Château de Houlbec, Medieval manor house in Les Monts du Roumois, France.
The Château de Houlbec is a manor house whose front combines Renaissance details on the left with Louis XVI style features in the center and right sections dating from 1786. The building rises over three floors with two vaulted medieval cellars beneath.
In 1418 the manor belonged to Jean VII d'Harcourt, who lost it fighting Thomas of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence. Jean Mazeline, viscount of Conches and Breteuil, bought the land in 1494 and began a new logis, extended from 1515 under François I. A 1603 inventory records half the building gone and a reworked facade with a pediment facing the street.
The seigneurial church of Notre-Dame, built in 1431 a short distance from the manor, served as the family chapel and burial vault rather than a private chapel inside the house. The rue de l'Église still links the two, and the barrel cellar implies a press for wine or cider.
The ruins stand on private land, so the house and towers are seen from the street rather than entered. The brick and stone facade is visible from the rue de l'Église, which also serves the neighbouring Notre-Dame church. The rue des Maingottières runs in line with the plain gate opening onto the property, and the surrounding ground is marshy farmland.
The 1898 excavations revealed that the manor was originally a square plan with a round tower at each corner; only the north and west towers and the single connecting wing survive. The west tower, 5.71 m across and 21 m high, was compared by Léopold Pannier in 1865 to the tower at Château de Fumichon.
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