The Park

Colonster Park’s current lay-out dates back to the first half of the 19 th century.

At that time, owners transformed the park into a then fashionable English-style landscape garden. Besides the creation of free, easier lines, the Castle’s flora was expanded with the discovery and acclimatisation of exotic species, which account for the site’s dendrological interest.

Traffic was organised thanks to an outstanding network of tree-lined paths and roads: today’s access drive is lined with sycamore maples; a line of plane trees with maple leaves runs alongside the path called “Chemin du Grand Maître”; and a double line of grafted European silver lime trees leads to the outbuildings.

The Castle’s terrace overlooks vast meadows, with a group of giant sequoias, a clump of black pines and a cluster of broad-leaved trees from the Eastern United States – white ashes, American red oaks and silver maples.

In the park proper, some beautiful isolated specimens – pedunculate oaks, an Atlas cedar, a giant sequoia and, above all, an extravagant pterocarya – stood next to a circle of eleven purple beeches, which were infected by giant polypore and had to be replaced by young trees in an identical arrangement at a short distance.

Colonster Park, as well as the forest side leading to the old Colonster mill, at the mouth of the Blanc Gravier dale, are fully open to the public, who can discover about a hundred remarkable, labelled trees.