Château de La Ferté-Imbault
The Château de La Ferté-Imbault (Loir-et-Cher) is a stately home in the Loire Valley, France. A fortress of the Middle Ages rebuilt during the Renaissance, it is the largest brick château in Sologne, and one of the oldest. It was the family seat of the House of d'Estampes for four centuries.
The seigneurie (lordship) of La Ferté-Imbault was the largest in the south of Sologne, whose lands included the parishes of Salbris, Saint-Genou (now Selles-Saint-Denis), Marcilly, Loreux and Souesmes. It comprised more than one hundred farms spread over tens of thousands of hectares, stretching from Loreux to Souesmes and from Saint-Viâtre to Theillay.
The château is a large "rectangular building, with large and fine windows, and flanked by four towers [...] ; shrubberies and alleys of mature trees lend an air of grandeur and poetry that strikes both the heart and the imagination". Its position "is quite pleasant and joyful, in a place where the Sauldre divides into several channels ... The red turrets of the château rise amid these waters and this greenery, and crown marvellously the rich picture".