Prochain point : lat="49.023504" lon="1.897282"
Les Gaudimonts – La Chaussée Brunehaut
A landscape that has changed with the passing of time
A holiday home between two valleys...
Originally, the Gaudimonts Estate used to be a hunting lodge. The thirty or so hectares of park, woods and farmland sheltered a large amount of game. A large house was built on the estate between 1901 and 1905. The owner, Mr Léon Bergès, asked the architect to seek his inspiration in Normandy when designing the house, which is the reason for its half-and-half appearance: Vexin gritstone and the typically-Norman exposed beams. The entrance porch used to be the caretaker's lodge.
Over the centuries, the land was put to different uses. In the late eighteenth century, as the 1782 stewardship plan shows, the land was mostly used for crop-growing, with some lying fallow that served as grazing grounds for sheep. The landscape gradually changed over the course of the nineteenth century, with farmland now only being cultivated in long narrow strips or on vast tracts. From the mid-twentieth century onwards, the sheep disappeared and the woods began to encroach on the estate. Today, the land belonging to the estate is almost entirely wooded.
...along a major road
To the north of the Seine, a number of ancient roads bear the name 'Chaussée Brunehaut'. This road, which was partially paved in the olden days, demarcates the territory of Gaillon-sur-Montcient and Tessancourt. Until the nineteenth century, the plateau was the main route used by travellers and for the transportation of goods, since the roads and trails at the bottom of the valley were not always passable. Two routes served Gaillon-sur-Montcient: on the one hand, there was the Chaussée Brunehaut, which provided a link to Vigny and the Chaussée Jules César; and on the other, there was the path connecting Magny-en-Vexin to Meulan-en-Yvelines by way of Rueil-Seraincourt.
