La Hunaudaye Castle (France)

The Château de la Hunaudaye, first built in the 13th century and rebuilt in the 15th and 16th centuries, is located on the territory of the French commune of Plédéliac, in the Côtes-d'Armor, in Brittany. It has been classified as a Historic Monument since February 1922 and November 1930.

Pierre de Dreux, Duke of Brittany, not recognizing the rights of Henri I on his lands in Penthièvre appropriated them by claiming the inheritance rights of his wife Alix, as the granddaughter of Conan IV. To consolidate his position in this region, he would have relied on Geoffroy and Olivier Tournemine, respectively husband and son of Eline, herself sister of Geoffroy Boterel III, count of Penthièvre8.

In 1214, Pierre de Dreux, gives the forest of Lanmur (current forest of Hunaudaye) to Olivier Tournemine, then authorizes him, in 1220 to build the strong castle of Hunaudaye there and also gives him the viscounty of Pléhérel.

The goal pursued with the construction of this castle was probably to monitor the Poudouvre (country of Dinan) whose border with Penthièvre (country of Lamballe) was formed by the Arguenon, a watercourse located two kilometers away. Henri I d'Avaugour had indeed taken refuge in the Poudouvre and could have considered reclaiming his land.

The castle is built in a marshy basin which had been occupied since the 4th century by a Gallo-Roman military camp [ref. necessary]. It would take its name from the proximity of the current village of Saint-Jean, which is much older than it, and was then called the “town of Hunaudaye”.

The origin of the Tournemine house is quite controversial11:

a memoir from the sixteenth century evokes the support that Pierre de Dreux [Which?] would have received from a count Édouard Tournemine to fight against the King of France; Pierre de Dreux would then have given him in fief La Hunaudaye around 1220.
according to Augustin du Paz, Olivier Tournemine would be a descendant of an English knight Edward with the nickname Tournemine, who came to help Conan IV so that he recovers the Duchy of Brittany which Eudes 12 had seized;
Olivier Tournemine would come from a noble family of Cantal still subsisting, the family of Tournemire (doubtful) [ref. necessary] ;
...
With the construction of the Château de la Hunaudaye, the family began a social ascent which would lead them to the highest levels of power. She will remain the owner of the castle for three centuries. In the thirteenth century the Tournemines added a second stronghold to La Hunaudaye to the east of Lamballe.

During the early days, the Château de la Hunaudaye does not seem to have known any assaults. It was only during the War of the Succession in Brittany (1341-1364) that it was attacked for the first time. This war opposes two great Breton lords who compete for the ducal crown: on one side, the army of Jean de Montfort, soon supported by the English, on the other, the family of Penthièvre, allied to the family of Blois, and soon supported by the French. At that time, Brittany was still an independent duchy, and it was not officially attached to the Kingdom of France until 1532. The conflict between the Montfort and the Penthièvre would turn into a real civil war. The Tournemines side with the Penthièvre. Their castle was then attacked by the Montfort army and by the English. He does not resist the assault and is destroyed. The Tournemines pay a heavy price for this war which ravaged all of Brittany. The family lost not only their stronghold, but also three of their men.

Louis Moréri wrote in 1759 a detailed biography of all the members of the different branches of the Tournemine family (the elder branch was Lord of La Hunaudaye, but several collateral branches prospered including that of Tournemine de La Guerche, lords of La Guerche en Retz (its best known member was François de Tournemine de La Guerche), that of Camsillon, that of the Lords of Coëtmeur (in Landivisiau) 13.

Pierre Tournemine14, the youngest, is the only one to survive his father and his two brothers. It was he who began the reconstruction, from 1367. The work was entrusted to the architect of Hersadaye and was not completed until a little over a century later, in 1474, after the death of Gilles Tournemine15 . An overall architectural plan is designed, it takes into account military innovations and gives the castle its current form: to the small west tower and the south-east tower are added three new towers (south-west, north-west, north ) of similar size, as well as new curtain walls. The residential buildings formed three wings that can still be seen today. The castle would have had a private chapel served by a chaplain without the sources indicating them appearing truly authentic.

Reconstruction is long, but successive works are on schedule. This reconstruction was made possible in a flourishing Brittany in the 15th and 16th centuries. The domain of Hunaudaye was erected into a barony in 1487 in favor of François Tournemine16 (not to be confused with François de Tournemine de La Guerche). In the duchy, the Tournemines are gaining importance. The family is now part of the Duke's entourage. Political, military or diplomatic missions follow one another for the men of the family. The wives are named companions of the various duchesses. The lands dependent on the castle extend over more than 80 parishes. The castle is spared by the troubles of the League (1592-1598), the opposing camps having agreed on a neutrality of the castle.

At the end of the 16th century, however, the Tournemine family died out in a posterity without a boy. The different owners of La Hunaudaye follow one another according to the inheritance. These families continued the development of the castle for a while; the modifications made are mainly made for the sake of comfort and decoration. The new ceremonial staircase is thus attributed to Sébastien de Rosmadec. The castle is then gradually abandoned, so that the staircase built by Rosmadec will be the only real modification made between the end of the sixteenth century and the French Revolution. In 1783, the castle was sold to the Marquis de Talhouët, future mayor of Rennes.

During the Revolution, the castle was again destroyed in 1793. That year, in fact, the Chouans roamed the country. Going north, they have just crossed the Loire and are heading for Brittany. The administration of the district of Lamballe fears that Hunaudaye will serve as a retreat and decides to dismantle it. Finally, a group of revolutionaries from Lamballe intervenes more or less legitimately and burns the castle. The furniture, the archives, the roofs and the wooden floors disappear. The drawbridge and the curtains are cut down. Then began a long period which would extend until the beginning of the twentieth century, during which the castle was used as a stone quarry.

It was classified as a Historic Monument in 1922; the plots surrounding it in 1930. In 1930, the collapse of the north curtain wall and the tower of the ice house prompted the State to buy back the monument in order to carry out conservation work. The first were urgently carried out in 1932, after the collapse of the chapel tower. The collapsed masonry was reassembled and all the walls were treated with pouring cement. The courtyard is cleared and the black tower consolidated. After the war, work continued with the shoring of the military tower in 1949, then between 1955 and 1962, the consolidation of the masonry of the five towers. While the consolidations continued without the urgency they had assumed in previous decades, the State began in 1968 to secure the site, following the accidental fall of a visitor.

It is also in these years that the moats are cleared. The chapel tower is protected by a reinforced cement roof. Since 1977, the castle has been managed, maintained and enhanced by the Château de la Hunaudaye association. Ownership of the castle passed from the State (Ministry of Culture) to the General Council of Côtes-d'Armor on February 1, 20081. Some modifications were then made to allow the site to be opened to the public, such as toilets, or three rooms in the black tower. The drawbridge is reconstructed, without its mechanism.