The Marqueyssac gardens, Vezac, Aquitaine, France
The Château de Marqueyssac is a 17th-century château and gardens at Vézac, in the Dordogne. The château was built at the end of the 17th century by Bertrand Vernet de Marqueyssac, Counselor to Louis XIV, on cliffs overlooking the Dordogne valley. The original garden featured terraces, alleys, and a kitchen garden surrounding the chateau. Between 1830 and 1840, Julien Bessières constructed a chapel and a grand alley one hundred meters long for horseback rides.
In the 1860s, the new owner, Julien de Cervel, began to plant thousands of boxwood trees – today there are over 150,000 – and had them carved in fantastic shapes, many in groups of rounded shapes. He also added linden trees, cypress trees, and stone pine from Italy, and introduced the cyclamen from Naples. Following the Romantic style, he built rustic structures, redesigned the parterres, and laid out five kilometres of walks.
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