Defying the Laws of Balance & Giant Ovens | Regnéville sur Mer - Exploring France
Regnéville sur Mer is somewhere we have been a fair few times, there is a beautiful beach there and an even better restaurant just in the village. We knew the château was there, but we didn't know about the old lime kilns!
Defying the laws of balance!
Regnéville is located on the west coast of the Cotentin peninsula of Normandy and on a sunny clear day, you can just about see the Channel Islands off the coast. This port is located on the edge of the mouth to the River Sienne and during the Middle Ages was one of the best and most popular anchorages on this coast. It was an important merchant stopover for Montmartin which is just down the coast and held great fairs. Nowadays, it is a fairly small but touristy town with small hotels and campsites dotted around and the population is only 741 people. It peeked in 1866 when over 2,000 people lived here!
There is quite a bit to see here for a small town. We saw the medieval castle and the lime kilns, but there is also a couple of beautiful churches, an old laundry dating back to the 17th century, the harbour, salt meadows, the beautiful old railway station house and the quaint little town itself.
So our first stop was to the château ruins in the town. Very easy to find as its signposted and easy to park either in the village or outside the church which is just across the road from the château, it's free to enter and they have events taking place there quite regularly by the looks of it. The site of this château was founded in the 12th century and remodelled in the 14th. It was mostly ruined in the 17th century to what we see today. It is now owned by the local council of Manche and there have been lots of excavation campaigns and restoration work to bring it back to life.
Historians believe the site was actually occupied from the 9th century during the Norman invasions of the area. The castle we see today was most likely built by Henry I of England and Duke of Normandy. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and when Henry I's father passed away, he was left landless being the fourth son, he was quite far down the hierarchy. It was by chance and family feuds he managed to gain the title of King of England and Duke of Normandy. This castle in Regnéville was built in the early 12th century and the keep dates from around this time. Henry I wanted to keep the castle and the port of Regnéville in royal hands as it is in a location that allowed him to keep control of Lower Normandy and allowed control of which merchants moored there.
In 1204, during the attachment of the Duchy of Normandy to France, the castle remained in the hands of royals and a century later, Joan of France, who was the last descendant of direct monarchs who reigned from father to son over France, married the Count of Èvreux who received as a dowry severe castles, including Regnéville. This would be the temporary end to the castle being in the hands of royals. It was only 50 years later Charles II, who was king of Navarre (now part of modern day Spain) inherited the castle from his father, the Count of Èvreux. (yes theres lots of kings of different regions and its hard to get your head around but stick with me!) It is likely it was during Charles II's ownership that the castle was rebuilt and major work was undertaken to strengthen the fortifications of the castle. The castle wasn't ruled by royals again until 1404, but again this was temporary.
During 1418, the castle was taken by the English. On behalf of King Henry V of England, the Duke of Gloucester seized the castle. This was a very unpopular action as you can imagine and it was also a very unorganised resistance There were attacks against English soldiers by locals of the castle. Only a few years later, Regnéville was the site of plans being made for the English to take over nearby Mont Saint Michel. Despite the local hatred for the English at the castle, it remained in their hands until 1449, when, after a 6 day siege, the fortress was taken by the army of the Duke of Brittany. This assault left a lot of damage to the castle and the following year, the English were driven out of Normandy completely. This was part of the Hundred Years War (that actually lasted 116 years).
This war left the castle in a bad way and it was worsened in the 1480's by a terrible storm. The castle was left in ruin for a century before restoration work began in the 1590's when moats were dug and the building itself restored to its former glory. However, a mere 40 years later, the castle once again suffered terrible storm damage, and it was ruled that it would be dismantled in 1637. The keep was filled with gunpowder, burst and split down its height and along the spiral staircase, this is the part you can still see now, standing over 12 metres tall it has been described as defying the laws of balance. This crumbled tower, has become a symbol of the village over the years. This part of the château would be have been first built in the 14th century and was square at one point. You can see supports for balconies and some remains of the spiral staircase as well as archways which give the remains of the tower extra support from falling down further. From 1637, the castles only function was residential and agricultural.
It is amazing when you walk around now how much of it remains despite its demolition. You can still see the old access to the port of Regéniville which as built in the 14th century, this gate was made up of drawbridges and fixed bridges and also a fortified gate. The water would have come right up to the castle during its heyday making it the main point for traders to get permission to go up the river and into the Cotentin peninsula. A lot of the outbuildings remain fairly intact but they have been rebuilt a lot over the years.
This is a great castle and is well prepared for visitors with many information boards around the outside. You could easily spend an hour here wandering around or take a picnic with you and sit out on the lawns. These information boards have handy QR codes to scan for translations of the text which is perfect and its all ran by Manche Tourism, for free!
When we approached the castle, we saw a little brown sign. We always try and keep our eyes open for little brown signs as they usually point to somewhere of good historic interest. This one was to Fours à chaux du Rey and the Maritime Museum. We thought we should go and check this out after a quick google we couldn't believe we had never been or even heard of it!
Fours à chaux du Rey are Lime Kilns, 4 of them, built in the mid 19th century. As Regnéville was a popular port during the 18th century, it was the perfect place to put lime kilns with fantastic access to so many places. For the kilns, coal was transported from Wales and then limestone exported to the north coast of Brittany and Channel Islands. There has actually been lime kilns here since the 16th century but these one we went to see were built between 1852 and 1854 and were only in use for about 30 years until lime production was abandoned in the late 1880s. They were left from then until the mid 1980's to become overgrown and abandoned until two local residents, one being the mayor of Regnéville decided to restore these beautiful ovens. The site now is also home to the Maritime Museum of Regnéville sur Mer.
So that's all the technical stuff about the kilns, we had no idea what to expect, we were a bit tight for time, so we thought we would drive the 1 mile to the kilns and we parked there for free, which was great. There was a lovely walk from the kilns, but knowing we didn't have enough time, we thought we would check out the kilns and do the walk on another day. We went back a week later to do the walk. It was a beautifully sunny day and our walk took us passed fields of cows, through the village which was absolutely stunning and so picturesque and along the road to the castle again. We made our own route, think we lost the planned way and we took a path along the castle and passed the old railway station that had a heavy influence during WWII, nowadays, it is a lovely house and is completely private. We walked along this small lane and across to a pathway through more fields and countryside and ended up at the beginning again. It was a lovely walk, around the village and one will will most defiantly be doing again!
But back to the kilns on our original visit. We weren't expecting much from the site, we had no idea what lime kilns were actually like and were expecting something conical shape, similar to the Great Pottery Throw Down on Channel 4 (picture below if you're unsure what we mean). We walked through a gate that looked as though it was closed and private and around the designated path. This path opened out to reveal the vastness of the four huge lime kilns before us. It looks like there used to be another four but have subsequently been destroyed. There are information boards all around which have surround sound and are in English so are great for visitors, these tell you about the architecture, working conditions and information about lay of the land. There is a quarry area which is now a stunning woodland area and as we went in spring time had beautiful blossom on the trees surrounded by bees and butterflies. It was a magical place (off course a fairy or two must live here!).
As we walked down the original access paths to the kilns, we were told about an old way of weighing how much lime came out of each kiln and approximately 27 tons of lime per day PER KILN!!! What an insane amount, but full capacity was rarely reached as demand was just not that strong. A lot of the lime was shipped off to the Channel Islands and Brittany who both had no way of producing their own lime at the time. It is sad to think that all the work and effort that went into making this vast place was unused after just 30 years. This place didn't take many people to keep it running, only about three people per kiln worked here, but at the time, conditions were tough and dangerous. Workers used to work 12 hours a day, six days a week, and they earned just £1.70 per week! There was another information board at the top of the kilns that said although there were many injuries on the site, only a handful of people lost their lives by falling into the kiln! What a horrible way to go, falling into a furnace.
This is a lovely place to come. If you watch our YouTube video (link below), you will see the sun was shining, the seas was blue and the grass was green, a perfect day. It is a place we will come back to for a lovely walk around the village and along the seafront.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCafklL7k4CrfWgiA9H3RawQ
Castle in Regneville - farm.nobler.groves Lime Kilns - lorries.mole.crikey
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