Architecture: Manoir d'Archelles

I'm about to introduce you to - in my opinion - one of the most beautiful buildings in France, and in a few days time, lucky me, I will be staying there because amazinginly the historic monument which is The Manoir d'Archelles in Normandy is also a small, unassuming hotel.

The 16th century fortified manoir is situated on the edge of the village of Arques la Bataille, a few miles from the Channel port of Dieppe. Surrounded by a small moat, the group of superb Renaissance buildings - with wonderfully architectural and quaint interiors - are arranged around the most exquisite garden! In our anual summer trip to France the Manoir has been our first stopping off point every year for the last 5 years so when I came to write this post I had to trawl through more than 500 photographs of it! I decided to divide the images into 3 sets: the architecture; the garden and the interior and I will be posting these over the next month, hoping that by the end I will have succesfully told the visual story of this sublime location. The Manoir d'Archelles has been owned and run since the 1960s by the same delightful family and is far removed in atmosphere and style from the swanky Chateaux hotels known in France - here all is unpretentious and workaday with Monsieur working the vegetable garden to supply the wonderful restaurant. Anyway, on to the pictures - I'll only keep text to the minimum, just explaining layout and archiectural information.


The first image shows the towered gatehouse - this is a detail - the arch leads through to courtyard garden in front of the main manoir building.


The small red brick is typical of Normandy vernacular architecture.



Vestiges of the moat














These oval windows - known as 'ox eyes' are everywhere in France





The manoir building itself which lies behind the gatehouse.








The back of the manoir



a view of the back of the gatehouse from the manoir





The side/ back of the manoir - as below










A tiny part of the garden revealed - more in a future post!! (worth waiting for!)





















Arch leading to the exquisite walled garden - post coming up on 6th August. If any architecture fans find themselves in north west France - here is a destination for you. I absolutely defy anyone not to be enchanted by this ravishing place.


You can contact the hotel and restaurant through the website: Manoir d'Archelles

See two other posts on the Manoir:
the interior &
the garden