luxury real estate for sale Romilly-sur-Seine, France

A chateau dating back to the 16th and 18th centuries with a swimming pool, nestled in grounds that cover two hectares in France’s Champagne region. The chateau was used as a country house in the 18th century. It was once the centre of the Saron fiefdom – from which the Bochart de Champigny lineage derived its family name from 1630 onwards. From the 17th century, it was a site of astronomical observations by Jean Bochart de Saron and Pierre Gassendi and, in the 18th century, by Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard Bochart de Saron, Roger Joseph Boscovich and Charles Messier. The archives of the French Academy of Sciences mention the chateau as a place used to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun on 3 June 1769, to determine the path of Uranus in 1781, and to observe comets. The chateau is surrounded by walled grounds that cover two hectares. The grounds include a vegetable patch and are dotted with age-old trees, including a 300-year-old plane tree and 200-year-old box and linden trees. A main court extends in front of the chateau, as does the garden, which an imposing wrought-iron gate separates from the village. A towpath along the River Aube demarcates the property’s lower section. Behind the edifice, a slope leads down to a pond. An outdoor swimming pool and a small greenhouse are hidden behind a large neighbouring 16th-century church and cannot be seen from the chateau.