Chateau Clairdome

When I spotted a return flight to France for just £11, my first thought was "Someone at Ryanair is going to get sacked." But then I spotted an Airbnb for just £21 a night, and decided that I'd be stupid not to do this. It actually cost me more to get to the airport than it cost me to fly to France, live there for a weekend, and fly back. It was an impulsive trip. I didn't plan it, and I didn't know a word of French. But my motivation was all the gorgeous abandoned stuff in the rural French countryside. Obviously I'm not going to be able to squeeze it all into a single weekend, but I can at least scratch this itch. 

 

This chateau has been nicknamed "Clairdome" by the French urbexers. The interior is unique and photogenic, and photos of it pop up all the time on those abandoned-places-for-normal-people articles, that showcase abandoned things without actually going there, often not crediting the photographer, and given some cheesy title like "Twelve stunning abandoned places that nobody will ever go to" with a comment section that never seems to realise that someone clearly did go there to take the photos. 

 

As such, even people who don't do urbex may recognise this place.

 

 

As for finding it, I wasn't about to start messaging French urbexers asking for locations. In contrast to many who do this hobby, I actually enjoy the hunt. I refuse to ask where something is like an insipid pin beggar. My happiness is too important to be reliant on others.

With Chateau Clairdome, all I had to go on was a satellite shot and a vague reference online to the area it was in. Once I found it on Google Maps, all I had to do then was figure out how to get there from my Airbnb. Doing it my way is more time consuming than slithering into someones inbox with an entitled attitude and bad grammar, but it's more rewarding and I get to sleep at night knowing that I'm not a parasite.

 

"Danger de mort." 

I've heard it said that French is the language of love. Well this building knows how to talk dirty to me.

There's this really awesome crest on the exterior wall. It has a lion, and some Latin that reads "Redde Suum Cuioud," which translates to "Return his to whom." That's a literal translation though. It may have a deeper meaning. At the top of the crest is an arm holding an axe, which is evocative of the Hingston Coat of Arms. The Hingstons are an ancient Anglo-Saxon family, with evidence suggesting that they predate the Norman conquest. 

And if one compares this crest to the Hingston arm as it appears on some pottery, the likeness is obvious right down to the fine details.

 

I actually love that the Clairdome arm has fingernails. Now that's attention to detail.

I'm not sure what the connection is to the Hingstons, but Anglo-Saxon symbology was not something I had expected to find in rural France. 

It's time to slip inside!

 

I learned that the chateau did indeed have British origins, and it's quite the story. But keep in mind, the story of this chateau and the family that called it home is one riddled with contradictions, varying dates for the same events, and I've had to translate it all from French too, so there may be some historic discrepancies.

 

At first there was a cotton manufacturer, born in 1743 in the Hague. His family can be traced back to the UK though, with his great grandfather being an artist who murdered two bailiffs in 1697. The cotton manufacturers father had been arrested in Paris in 1755 for getting paid advances on jobs, and then spending it without actually doing the work. He'd gone on to London to be an artist, and in 1764 he painted the Prince of Wales, before dying of "an uncommon disorder." 

Ease up on the jargon, doctors of the 1760s. We didn't all go to medical school. 

 

The Dutch Cotton Manufacturer remained in France, building a hydraulic cotton mill in 1792.

Then came the English Banker, born in 1751. He married the Cotton Manufacturers daughter in 1788. On her mothers side, she's said to be a descendant of the Pendrell family who aided Charles II in his escape to France after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The Banker is also said to be descended from the Pendrells, so we're already encountering some familial intermingling, not all surprising in these rich folk bloodlines. At least there's a few generations difference. We're not in Telford.

 

The Banker did as men do, and shot his DNA into his wife, producing a number of children. Some died in infancy, and others would stay in the UK. One son, born in 1792, was eyeballed by his grandfather the cotton manufacturer. His health was failing him, and he wanted the boy to inherit the cotton empire. When the boy was fourteen he was sent to the best cotton mills in the UK to learn how to do it, and then finally in 1811 the Cotton Manufacturer brought him and his father the Banker over to France. 

This actually proved to be pretty difficult. It was, after all, the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, so moving from the UK to France was a tedious process. With his health failing, the Cotton Manufacturer made a contingency plan, and left everything to his niece. He passed away in 1813, and the banker, now in France, promptly purchased the mill, and the land, the company, everything she had been left, for 500,000 francs. In 1814, he gave it all to his son, as was the cotton manufacturers wish, although some sources say that it initially went to the boys older brother, until he died in 1821. This seems unlikely, because the chateau was built before 1821, and it was not the older brother who lived here.

The older brother died in Rome, but his own son became a famous philosopher, so there's a story there. It's just not this one.

The chateau was built between 1815 and 1818, consisting of twenty rooms. While its construction is often attributed to the banker, I've found one source of information that says that it was actually constructed as a wedding gift to the occupants new bride, who felt that she deserved a castle. Given that the bankers wife was to pass away in 1817, and the banker dying on a trip to Paris just seven months later, and they'd already been married and multiplied like rabbits, it seems that this was a bit of a belated wedding gift. It's more likely that it was in fact his son, now 22, who offered this castle to his new wife.  

I'm no relationship guru, but if your partner gets you a castle, he's a keeper.

And interestingly, in 1826 right here within these walls, a son was born who went on to become the French Prime Minister.

So there's the lesson, chaps. Get your wife a castle and she will give you world leaders. 

The bankers sons ran the cotton empire together, until the elders untimely demise in Rome in 1821. In 1823, the Bankers son was joined instead by his other brother, and together they built a huge new mill. The other brother ceased their association in 1825 though, and the boys youngest brother, a keen mechanic, joined him instead.

Rubble is strewn all over the ground, but peering out from under it is this awesome mosaic floor, giving us a glimmer of how it all once looked.

On this curved wall, it's possible to make out the remains of two portraits alongside the doorway.

I remember seeing some urbex photos years ago that showed the sculptures of women still here. I've tried to find them, but it was so long ago. Now the sculptures have gone, either crumbled naturally or taken down by vandals.

 

The real attraction of Chateau Clairdome is this central stairway leading up, and forking as it reaches the top, underneath a huge circular skylight from which ivy hangs down.

 

 

Down there by the door is a little stone plinth that would have once held a statue of a bust or something. I did see a video of this building from the 1940s that showed one such bust. Whether it's the same one, I don't know. The video was very grainy.

 

 

There's one sculpture remaining on the wall. It's badly decayed and could crumble to the floor if so much as a gentle breeze hits it.

 

 

The top of the forked stairs join up to this central walkway. It's times like this I really wish I had a wide angle lens. I can't do this place justice. That's the infuriating thing. Plenty of real photographers have, and I'm in awe of some of their shots, while unable to adequately capture my own experience. The true extent of just how amazing it was to be here in person is something that really exists in my memory.

 

 

The mosaic floor can be seen up here too.

 

After drooling over this place for so many years, it felt truly amazing to finally be here. I know it is basically just a ruin, albeit a gorgeous one, and probably not everyone's cup of tea, but for me being here is a dream come true. It just took a little step out from my comfort zone. I am an anxious traveler, but not because of flying. I'm fine when I'm on the plane. I just hate airports.

I used to litter my life with the words "I would, but..." and then insert some lame excuse which deflected from the fact that the reason I wasn't was because I was being a daft cunt. 

If you replace "I would, but..." with "I could, if..." then your excuses become obstacles and you can start thinking of ways around them. 

But Clairdome isn't going to last forever. Look at it. Someday this walkway and the stairs will collapse. Someday the walls will crumble. If we're lucky someone will renovate it, but even then we won't be able to come here and enjoy it anymore. It's that fear of it someday not being doable that made me come here, because if I didn't then someday I'd just be looking at old photos after it was long gone, and lamenting that I had missed the opportunity.

 

On the wall here, there's a very intricate design, giving some indication of the sculpture that once hung on the wall. 

 

 

Interestingly enough, the bridge over the stairway actually leads outside. The chateau is three floors, but set on a slope so the middle floor comes out on the ground.

 

Interestingly, despite this place being built by the older brother, allegedly for his bride, it's the younger brother who is said to have lived here during the 1830s. The older brother had since moved on to Paris to run the business from there. It's said that they were quite the team, making all the important decisions together and building new mills everywhere, expanding their cotton bonanza all over France. 

 

But I am curious about the older brothers departure from the chateau. If he built it for his wife, then why did they leave? It seems that the chateau had actually somehow fallen into the ownership of a man named Balthazar. Is he the villain of the story? He has a super villains name! His sole heiress was his niece, who was living in the chateau. According to records, the younger brother married her in 1831 purely so that his family could regain the chateau when Balthazar died and left it to her. Delightfully sneaky. Is this chateau worth marrying someone to obtain? You're damn right it is! Even without the families sentimental attachment to it, it's gorgeous. The family wanted it back and the younger son took one for the team to get it. 

 

But, how and why did Balthazar get it to begin with? I can't find any further information on that. Did the bankers son sell it for the purpose of expanding their business with the intent on bamboozling it back into their hands from the very beginning? That's quite the gamble. 

Balthazar died in 1849, and the chateau was once again back with the original family. They had two children in 1841 and 1845, intriguingly ten years after they got married, which is quite a lengthy period of time in an era where thriving businesses and property were getting handed down the lineage. It certainly hints at a marriage that didn't have much passion, but then he did marry her just to get the chateau. A rather poetic contrast to the love which saw the chateau's initial construction. 

The important thing is, the chateau was back with the family who built it, albeit with a different brother. The original brother was spawning prime ministers and journalists, and in 1838, the son who would inherit the family cotton business.

 

On the upper floor, there's actually not a lot of room to explore. Most of the rooms have collapsed. This large circular central room still has a balcony around the exterior, but there's no way to get to it.

 

 

Just imagine what it would be like for the owners to sit on that balcony and overlook the French countryside every single day.

 

There's still loads of detailing around the door frames.

And thanks to the internet, and also the French putting pictures of their castles on vintage postcards, I actually have seen what this room looked like back in the day!

So, pay attention to the details here. The archways flanking the doorway to the next room, the big square recess where a picture hangs, and then in the left corner there's some detail above another archway. Take note of the curvature of the wall too. 

 

And now I'm just gonna nip downstairs and look up.

Do you see? Curved wall, detail above the central doorway, partially obscured by the debris, and to the right are the decorative arches alongside the doorway. It's the same room!

I only wish I had more information. Like who is the chap in the picture? Who are the people in the circular pictures in the archways? There's still so much I don't know about this place.

Buried under the rubble of the central room is this fireplace. It makes me wonder what else we could find if we removed all the rubble. If you look very closely, you can see that a tiny lion statue sits next to the fireplace, behind the debris.

A short distance away from the main stairway is the old servants staircase, although it has since become little more than a ramp with rubble on it.

So in the 1840s, the cotton industry was going from strength to strength with about 1,200 employees in 1843, making it the one of the leading industrial businesses in France. As the years progressed, more and more of the brothers offspring got involved in it. They did allegedly come under a little bit of fire when a report in 1851 said that they had employed 42 people under the age of twelve, but this was a period in French history where they were clamping down on their child labour laws, very much like the UK. It was nothing out of the ordinary for the time. It just meant that they needed to adjust as new legislation was passed.

The company grew and grew, opening another mill in 1853. The elder of the two brothers, the original occupant of the chateau, died in either 1865 or 1869. Records are either contradictory or he came back as a vampire and died again. You decide. 

His younger brother continued living comfortably here. His son, also involved in the family business along with his nephews, had two daughters in 1866 and 1868, the oldest of which is said to have lived in this chateau during the 1870s after her grandfather died. She married in 1887, and was living here as late as 1926. 

 

At the top of the stairs is this tiny room. Its pretty featureless, but it's nice to see that some rooms in this chateau have survived.

Unfortunately since the cousins on the corporate side, and the one who happened to become a prime minister, were hogging the spotlight, there's really not much to say about the daughters side of the family, except that she outlived the business. Her cousin filed for bankruptcy in 1939, and she curiously died in 1944 at the same time as her daughter.  

What's not a surprise is that this town was occupied by Nazis from 1940 to 1944. Whether they had anything to do with the deaths of the women, I don't know. The lineage does continue, even to the present day, so presumably they fled. But let's be honest, the Nazis would have been all over this chateau. They aren't going to occupy an entire town and leave the most gorgeous building alone.

 

While researching the chateau I actually found a photo, taken in 1946, which shows a load of young men sat on an abandoned German tank. The text on the image claims that it's here in the vicinity of the chateau, although I don't recognise the background buildings. 

 

But what this shows is that when the allied forces came and liberated the town, the Germans were a bit sloppy with their getaway, the town was littered with the remnants of their occupation.

That chateau was still standing, but the family had gone. It ended up being purchased in 1945 by another wool-producing giant, and they turned it into a summer camp for the children of their employees, which is pretty cool. There are videos online that show grainy black and white footage of the children at the mansion. Apparently throughout the 1940s, the children were divided based on age range, with the ones staying at the chateau being referred to as The Penguins. The younger children were to stay in a nearby chalet, where they were referred to as the Little Swiss. Later, a second chalet was built, called Canadian Cottage, for the over thirteens. This was maintained at least up until the 1960s, and there are older people today who recall the times fondly, saying that the food was good, and the activities were fun. Some who grew up in troubled households say that coming here was a welcome break from their tedious home life. The camp was allegedly gender segregated. One year the boys would come in July, and the girls would come in August. The following year, they'd swap it around.

Grainy 1940s footage of the Chateau does exist, showing the upper rooms packed with beds. Despite the fond memories that people have of the place, they do seem to be crammed in like sardines.

Alas, given the graininess of the footage, and the condition of the chateau today, it's impossible to tell where in the building they are. But if any of these people are alive today, it would be great to bring them here and hear all their memories.

I'm not entirely sure when the chateau stopped being a holiday camp, but the cotton giant that owned it fell on hard times in the 1980s which only persevered throughout the 1990s. It was sold and liquidated in 2004. As for the chateau, clearly at some point it was set on fire, but nobody seems to know when or why.

The thing is, the fire took out the roof, and nature got in. And as we know, once nature gets in, a building is fucked.

 

Alas, the stairway up to the very top floor is impossible to traverse. Even looking at the top of the stairs, that floor is about to collapse. I have seen photos from the top floor of this place though! In that article the photographer describes how they got very lucky and came here to find that there was a way up, but that it was temporary and no longer exists. My guess is that they knew what to expect and they brought a ladder.

There is a staircase behind a door here.

But as you can see, the stairs fall away in the middle. I could, potentially, stand on the one step and lean across and pull myself up onto those top steps, assuming they are sturdy. But in a place like this I'm asking a lot that they hold my weight. If I pull myself up onto them and they break, I'm going straight down without any chance of landing back on the steps that I was originally standing on. See what I mean? It's a risk I decided not to take. 

However, I did lean forward off that step, and reach my camera up there to take a picture of the room I can't get to.

It's just a room. But it's a room with a door to another room, and that's what boils my piss.

To cheer myself up, I went to check out the rooms I could actually get to.

This blue room was quite nice, although it is missing a floor and a ceiling.

 

 The room below it is cluttered from the rubble of two ceilings collapsing, but still has the remains of old shelves. It's from down here that we can get a better view of the blue room, because upstairs we can only really see one angle, through the doorway leading into it.

 

There are the remains of sculptures in the upper corners of the blue room, and if you look really closely at the top corner of this one, you can just about make out a guitar and flute. This was perhaps a music room.

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The ground floor also has this yellow room which still has a couple of work surfaces and shelves remaining. It's somewhat lacking in signs of the buildings former grandness, which makes me wonder if this area was used by the servants.

 

I'm not sure what the future holds for Chateau Clairdome. I've heard a variety of different things. Every now and again, someone in the urbex world will say that it cannot be accessed anymore, and then some little shit like me finds a way in anyway. The bars on the windows are relatively new, and aren't in any of the shots I saw prior to coming here, meaning that someone somewhere does care about people entering. Rumour has it they have a shotgun that they aren't afraid to point at people. 

I didn't see anyone, but I was approaching with the shotgun rumour in mind, so I was being quiet and watchful. This isn't like the UK urbex scene where people get caught by the police on purpose just to have some Youtube clickbait. My entire mindset is to get in and out without leaving any clues that I was ever there. I've heard rumours that there are plans underway to fix up the old chateau, but I've also heard rumours that this can't happen due to some sort of land dispute. Perhaps Chateau Clairdome will still be amazing adventurers for years to come. Maybe it won't be, in which case I'm glad I got to see it. 

And so my urbex across France has began, not with a mighty road trip as I had hoped, but a tiny weekend. I'll definitely be back.

My next blog will be an awesome Welsh folly, and then I guess, more France! Woooo!!!!

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Thank you for reading!

 

Some say the owner has a shotgun.