Gardens
From 1717 to 1903, Château Bellenau was owned by the La Fosse family.
Pierre-Etienne-Joseph La Fosse (Pierre V) born in 1828 at Saint Côme du Mont, had a dream in which he envisaged a splendid park behind his family home with rare trees, water gardens, islands, follies & grottos.
Over a period of around 40 years using a workforce of 200, he succeeded in transforming the surrounding marshland into a unique environment. He introduced and acclimatised many rare and exotic foreign plants for
the first time in the Cotentin region (famed for its micro-climates), many of which still flourish today as magnificent mature specimens.
He designed a series of islands and waterways interlinked by bridges or accessible by boat. He planted trees and shrubs to form thickets or groves among which he created a myriad of winding paths to explore....
The garden is still evolving to this day, published in local garden guides and maintained by
Jardins Naturels
.