The house sits on the village street. It was built in the sixteenth century as the watch keeper’s house for the village. The building and its grounds incorporate the old rampart walls and one of the old towers dating from the period when Châtillon-sur-Saône was a kind of garrison town for the Dukes of Bar and, later, Lorraine.
The garden is just under half an acre. In the plan (rough as it is!) the garden walls – including the two rampart walls – are shown by double lines. Areas planted with either shrubs or herbaceous plants are shown in pink.
A view up the garden from very near the river bank helps to explain. Our house is dead centre, with the balcony. You can even see the mirror on the top terrace, just below the unrenovated village vistors’ centre (to the left of the picture).
But this was in 2011 … we’ve achieved a lot of things since then!
Garden Dreaming at Châtillon 