Original in all France – la Saucerie

Château, manoir & other architectural gems

- October 17, 2025October 17, 2025

This post was first published in June 2016 In a land full of fancy fortified manor houses and grand Conqueror’s castles, Manoir de la Saucerie, 7km west of Domfront, manages to stand out. Not because it isn’t really a manor; it is a gate house, but because of a 17th century decision. After

The wooden phoenix of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives

- July 30, 2025August 1, 2025

first published July 2016 For nearly 1000 years, fine produce from across the Pays d’Auge has changed hands in the vast market hall of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives. Aromatic sausages, oozing Camembert cheeses, the furry and the fowl; over time goods sold under this peg tiled roof have altered little. The hall was built for

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 treachery of a broken-hearted knight, in medieval Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte

- February 4, 2017February 6, 2017

Geoffroy d’Harcourt of Château de Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, was born into a life of great privilege and great danger at the beginning of the 14th century. With one leg damaged at birth he could not expect to be a knight, as a Harcourt his loyalty should never have been in question, but Geoffroy

The wandering gatehouse of Beuvillers, Calvados

- December 19, 2015September 24, 2016

Tiny Beuvillers is just south of Lisieux in Normandy and you would think this beautiful Poterne de Beuvillers would be easy to find. The photographer made a very small mistake. It’s not really a Poterne - that translates as Postern, the secondary door or gate in an ancient fortification. This is

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