The earliest recorded castle of Château de Challain-la-Potherie dates all the way back to the medieval age in 1050. The original castle was probably part of the ‘Les Marches de Bretagne’ a series of fortresses that acted as a defensive line that protected the people of the ancient region of France known as Brittany. That chateau, and many others that followed it were destroyed in the wars, and conflicts that wracked the area in the centuries that followed.
The current Château de Challain-la-Potherie was built from 1847 to 1854 in the neo-Gothic style, which was fashionable among the French aristocracy at the time. Its architect, René Hodé, designed many other châteaux in the same style in Anjou, but Challain remains the most imposing.
The 19th-century castle was commissioned by Louise-Ida de La Potherie, the last of her name, and her husband, the Count of La Rochefoucauld-Bayers. The choice of the neo-Gothic style was a means for them to restore the family's glory after the French Revolution. It was also a choice motivated by the tastes of the time, as neo-Gothic was in vogue among the Angevin aristocracy. René Hodé specifically adopted the troubadour style, which applied a neo-medieval decoration to a functional structure. The internal structure of the castle and its general layout followed the neoclassical architectural rules developed in the 18th century.
Despite its grandeur and significant place in the history of Angevin architecture, it suffered some degradation after the death of its patrons. It had numerous successive owners during the 20th century and served as a vacation colony center for about twenty years. Finally, in 2002, it was transformed into a luxury guesthouse.
Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).