As I was going through my pictures of Falaise from last summer it struck me that this photograph of the Chateau de la Fresnaye bears quite a lot of resemblance to the picture of the Museum of Normandy I posted a couple of days ago. Having done a little bit of research I’m fairly certain this is more coincidental than intentional.
For a start the two buildings were build much much different purposes in mind. The former governor’s house in Caen is a very bare-bones military style building with as much style as you would find in a 19th century barracks in France. That is to say with perhaps a touch more architectural features as you would find nowadays but not by much. By contrast the Chateau in Falaise was built as a 17th century mansion for a wealthy landlord and to this day is still privately owned. Surprisingly for a building which has been classified as a Historical Monument since 1958, there isn’t much information about it available on line that I could find.
Not to be confused with the small(er) mansion of the same name found south of Angers
