Photo : Aubry Françon / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Château d'Usson
The Château d'Usson, also called Château des Égreteaux, is in the commune of Échebrune, about 7.5 kilometres east of Pons, in Charente-Maritime. Built between 1536 and 1548 in Renaissance style by Nicolas Bachelier and his assistant Jean Delespine for the lord Jean IV de Rabaine, it lost its two parallel wings after the siege of La Rochelle, the Protestant Rabaine family having then lost its rights.
In 1879, William Augereau bought the ruins. Judging restoration impossible, he had the castle dismantled from 1886, each stone being numbered, then had it rebuilt further away, near the Seugne valley. He added elements from other buildings, including a fireplace from the castle of Pons. The whole, listed as a historic monument in 1925, has a U-shaped main building with a Renaissance gallery, a courtyard adorned with sculptures and maxims, and a winter garden. Since 1999, the place has housed the Château des Énigmes leisure park, with tree houses and puzzle games.
