The topics of this blog are Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Duke of Richelieu, and the IDEAL CITY built on his command next to his magnificent CHÂTEAU on the borders of Touraine, Anjou and Poitou, in France.

Wednesday 17 September 2008

The château & town's water system (2) - in photographs

A former post written by chief architect of Les Monuments Historiques, Arnaud de Saint-Jouan, described the château and town's water supply system. Here are sylvan pictures of the various installations to match the very interesting and informative text. (Items references refer to the text).

Click here for the text.

The 17 century spring chamber at Bisseuil (item O)

The water aerator outside the castle (item P)


The town's old water tower fed from Bisseuil 


The Bollée hydraulic ram building (item J)

The old electricity generator building (item J)


The sluice from the ram and the powerstation (item G)


The sluice flowing past the hydraulic ram (item G)


The current supply canal in its 19 century relocation (item D)


The grand canal looking south towards the original 17 century feeder canal and sluices location (item E), now largely blocked and silted up

The sad location of the derelict embarquadère on the grand canal, demolished in 2007 (item L)


The inaccessible location of the reservoir, within the walled hunting park with the wild boar (item M)



The view of the grand canal's exit sluices from the main park (item F)


The main exit sluices (item F)

The sluice's stonework abutments (item F)


The final overflow pond before the entry to the town's moat, now partially planted with poplars (item I)

2 comments:

Susan said...

Absolutely fascinating! I love this sort of industrial archaeology. Do you know the engineering firm of Bollée and their beautiful éoliennes, featured by us several times: http://daysontheclaise.blogspot.com/search?q=eolienne

But 'wide boar'? I have a French friend who has difficulty with the pronunciation of 'wild' and complains about the 'wide boar' in her garden. Are you having a similar problem?

And does that mean you can no longer hire a barque in Richelieu?

Susan said...

H - just realised you told us about éoliennes Bollée after we posted about that one – granny will now retire and suck her own eggs.

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