The Château de Vignory is a ruined castle in the commune of Vignory in the Haute-Marne. It was the residence of the lords of Vignory. It was built at the start of the 11th century, but no elements of this period exist today.
The first written record of a castle is from the years 1050-1052. It had originally been a castrum, held by the first lord of Vignory, Guy.
The monuments visible today are more recent: the keep (middle of the 12th century) was used by the lord to receive his subjects; the tour au Puits (Well Tower, middle of 15th century) served to defend the entry to the village from Chaumont; various ramparts and defensive towers on the Valnoise side; the large tour Canonnière (Artillery tower, end of 15th century).
The side facing the valley was completed by a Renaissance gateway emblazoned with coats of arms leading to the lower hall, probably at the time of Henri de Lenoncourt, for whom Vignory was made into a barony in 1555. Of the castle's defensive walls, only segments of the curtain wall remain and a large artillery tower dominating the village and the valley, the so-called tour du Puits (well tower), reduced in height in 1846. Two other towers of the defensive walls, demolished during the 19th century, had cannon emplacements, attesting to the importance of adapting the castle to artillery. The logis, to which one of these towers was attached, was still roofed in 1840, but has now completely disappeared. The tower collapsed in 1913.
References: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).