The rampant ambition of Blanchard the balloonist, from Petit Andelys

- June 21, 2024June 30, 2024

First published October 2017 Jean Pierre François Blanchard was born in Petit Andelys, the second son of an odd-job man, on July 4, 1753. Perhaps the vast remains of Chateau Gaillard that tower above the town inspired him to the possibilities of human endeavour. Whatever the cause, Jean Pierre was destined

The Moor Eater and other tales of the Lords de Tosny

- June 30, 2021October 7, 2024

First published November 2017 For a few hundred years the de Tosny family made their Norman mark and then... they were gone. But the de Tosny are remembered to this day in Conches-en-Ouche, the town they built in the Orne. Records have probably been a little bent by time, as the earliest

The short life of Levavasseur’s gothic folly; the mill at Fontaine-Guérard

- December 15, 2019December 15, 2019

This post was first published in November 2016 Our match may not be the best, but is also the first view we had of the Filature Levavasseur as we zoomed along the Andelle valley one summer day. What was an English cathedral doing in a Eure valley? In a hurry we

Death of an almost perfect King, at Lyons-la-Forêt – guest blogger!

- February 9, 2019June 30, 2024

First published 2019 Today our guest blogger is doctor, botanist and historian Jamieson B. Hurry MA MD. This entertaining extract first appeared in his excellent tome 'Henry Beauclerc and Reading Abbey' published in 1917. Henry Beauclerc was the fourth and most successful of William the Conqueror's sons, ruling as King Henry I

Ripe for renovation; a chateau in the Eure

- August 11, 2018November 11, 2025

First published August 2018, 2024 renovation update link at the end of this article. CHATEAU RUINS FOR SALE IN NORMANDY. If there a more magical phrase we do not know it. Six words that send us on a dream of possessing our own fortress in the beautiful Eure countryside. For less

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