Château d'Andlau
Encyclopedia
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
in the commune
Communes of France
The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...
of Andlau
Andlau
Andlau is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.The village owes its origin to Andlau Abbey which was founded in AD 880 by Richardis, the Empress of Charles the Fat...
, in the Bas-Rhin
Bas-Rhin
Bas-Rhin is a department of France. The name means "Lower Rhine". It is the more populous and densely populated of the two departments of the Alsace region, with 1,079,013 inhabitants in 2006.- History :...
département of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
History
Constructed on a narrow graniteGranite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
outcrop at an altitude of 451 m (~1466 ft), the Haut-Andlau dominates the valleys of Andlau and Kirneck. The castle was built from granite blocks, very certainly by Eberhard d'Andlau between 1246 and 1264. In 1678, after the joining of Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
to France, it was pillaged by the troops of maréchal de Créquy
François de Créquy
François, chevalier de Créquy and marquis de Marines was marshal of France.-Life:He was born in the military Créquy family dating back to the 10th century....
. The castle stayed in the hands of the counts of Andlau until the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and served afterwards as a residence for a gamekeeper in the service of the family.
Confiscated as a national asset, it was sold in 1796 to a merchant who, from 1806 and with general indifference, began to sell the castle piece by piece. In 1818, Antoine-Henri d'Andlau bought the ruin and saved it from destruction. Repair work was carried out in 1856. The castle was classified as a monument historique
Monument historique
A monument historique is a National Heritage Site of France. It also refers to a state procedure in France by which national heritage protection is extended to a building or a specific part of a building, a collection of buildings, or gardens, bridges, and other structures, because of their...
(historic monument) in 1926 and was reinforced in 1927-1928 with a restoration campaign launched on the initiative of the Club Vosgien. It still belongs to the Andlau family.