Visit this 'remarkable' chateau garden in France

Beatrix d’Ussel was a young woman in Paris in the 1960s. She met a charming engineer from an old family in the Haute-Corrèze (Nouvelle-Aquitaine), fell in love and got married at the age of 21.

Her new husband, Patrick d’Ussel took her to the family’s castle at Neuvic. His father, Guillaume, had died when Patrick was just four years old. Guillaume was arrested by the occupying German forces on May 9, 1944 and, as an active Resistance leader in the ‘Secret army’, he was sent to Neckargerach concentration camp where he died the following November.

His widow, Yvonne, was left to manage the estate, including the 200-year-old arboretum, and to bring up Patrick and his three younger siblings. Patrick, when he came of age, quickly became passionate about the forests of the family estate and, by the time of his retirement, was the vice president of the Burgundy and Limousin Forestry Cooperative.

Beatrix and Patrick had three children – two boys and two girls – but very sadly their eldest son died at the end of 2001 and then Patrick himself became ill and died in 2005. Beatrix, newly widowed and with her other children grown and gone, metaphorically and literally rolled up her sleeves and set to work.

A 'Remarkable Garden'

Within two years she had undertaken a programme of work to restore, replant and revive the arboretum and had it classified as a Remarkable Garden (Jardin remarquable). 

“I went to Limoges to try to get ahead. They came out to see the park. It wasn’t finished but they understood what I was doing. We had talked about it before, my husband had made some plans. He was interested in the trees,” Beatrix remembers.

Created in the English landscape style, by Jean-Hyacinthe d’Ussel – following the reconstruction of the chateau after it was ravaged by fire – the whole park is open to visitors and covers six-and-a-half hectares (just over 16 acres).

It has an unusual ‘bean’ shape, curving around a body of water and the land is hilly. The arboretum contains around 370 different species of trees from around the world, with a good mix of both coniferous and broadleaved species. Over 200 trees have been added since 2007.

There are three kilometres of walks and paths between the trees. Beatrix has added follies – a hexagonal garden pavilion constructed of chestnut; an aviary; a Gallo-Roman urn; a large wooden cross; and a stone oratory. “I found that in the Gironde,” Beatrix adds.

Beatrix worked with a garden designer/landscaper, Laurent Berthelier, to create the Priest’s Garden (Jardin du curé) in 2011. 

“The theme for Rendez-Vous Aux Jardins that year was ‘Nourishing Gardens’ and I was inspired. I wanted to respond to that idea,” Beatrix recalls.

The Priest’s Garden is a potager (ornamental vegetable garden). It was designed within the existing old walled garden of the retiring caretaker of the chateau (gardien/jardinier). Abutting the chapel of Saint Guillaume, it is made up of ten square vegetable beds.

There is a flowerbed of medicinal herbs which the priest would have needed to minister to his flock when they were sick. There is also a bed of culinary herbs to be used in the priest’s kitchen. The kitchen itself is in one corner with a display of ancient tools and utensils. Visitors can discover the seven essential elements of a priest’s garden. The borders which run along the walls are full of flowers with names which evoke the spiritual world.

Beatrix later added an orchard. She smiles when she tells me, “You will like this – it’s laid out like a Union Jack! There are two crosses, overlaid, a diagonal one and a rectangular one. Those are the paths and in each triangle there are three fruit trees. There are all sorts: apples and pears, of course, but also walnuts, quince, cherries, peaches and plums. The orchard is surrounded by walls and hedges. Along the edges there are berries and currants. And rhubarb, magnificent rhubarb.”

When I tell Beatrix about my struggles to grow rhubarb here in the far South West, she gives me a tip. “Between each plant, we have put an oya,” she confides. “Do you know what that is? It’s a porous terracotta vessel that holds water close to the rhubarb’s roots, maybe that would help you,” she suggests. “It just keeps them damp.”

An educational, environmental and event setting

Beatrix has been keen to improve the estate’s biodiversity. She wants to use the estate so that visitors can enjoy the space but at the same time learn about nature and the environment. She has created booklets for children with four different age-appropriate groups so they can use them with the parents to get the most out of their visit. 

“The adults as much as the children enjoy searching for the two resin creatures we have hidden,” says Beatrix, “but the adults don’t get the reward if they spot them,” she smiles.

“Every Tuesday, when the park is open in the summer, we run workshops for children. We have an activities guide (animateur) and we call the children ‘adventurers’. We have a theme, like birds or insects. And we have family activities – four times over the summer we have a rendez-vous with the moon. It’s a night visit where people can see bats, owls and night-flying insects.

“We work with the same activities guide. She’s very good at bringing the park to life! There are lots of information boards around the park too, so people can find out for themselves.”

The boards tell you not only about the creatures and plants that live in the park but about its history. The personal history of the d’Ussel family is there – pointing out a huge tree climbed on by generations of children including Beatrix’s own – and a more sombre history of the Maquis (the French resistance during World War II) and the family’s connection to it.

“We have lots of different events in the park. We had an egg hunt. We have concerts and crafts – just after the Rendez-Vous aux Jardins, a Veteran Car Rally. Then we will have all the Third Age Clubs (clubs de 3e âge) in the department coming – about a hundred people, I understand. And we have theatre. This year it’s Cabaret Prévert,” Beatrix enthuses.

This seems very apt as Beatrix has told me that the d’Ussel family’s ancestors include well-known troubadours in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries.

“I have always wanted the park to have a charitable function,” Beatrix tells me. “For it to be able to help people, I teamed up with an organisation called Jardin Santé, a mental health charity. Then when that finished, I found Open Gardens/Jardins Ouverts and I was happy as I felt they had the same aims to help through the pleasure of gardens.”

Beatrix will be hosting events for the European Heritage Days (Journées européennes du patrimoine) in September and before that a visite-apéritif on 28 August – you can find full details on the website.

There will be something for everyone.