After the success of the first two crowdfunded buyouts of endangered castles, which allowed 35,000+ backers from 115 countries to acquire and save the castles of La Mothe Chandeniers and Ebaupinay, Dartagnans and Adopte un Château are proud to present another castle worthy of a new lease on life : the Castle of Vibrac!
The crazy bet to buy the Ebaupinay castle, less than a year after the Mothe Chandeniers castle, has just come true. This second adventure gathered 10 858 people from 96 countries around the world to help save and rebuild this ancestral castle.
The model created by Dartagnans and Adopte un château to create a French National Trust asserts loud and clear!
From the bottom of your heart, THANK YOU to the thousands of Lords from around the world who believe in this new and innovative model for heritage preservation. Without you, none of this would be possible!
The castle of Ebaupinay, unique witness of medieval military architecture of the fourteenth century, disappears a little more each day under the weight of time and its structure.
To save this historical monument thanks to a collective purchase, is the new crazybet launched by Dartagnans and Adopts a chateau by federating and making all the generations dream.
1- Right click on the image and click on download
2 - Or just click on the following link to download the certificate : Download certificate
After the worldwide success of the first collective purchase of a monument, which gathered 27 910 enthusiastic people, from 115 countries, around the Château de la Mothe-Chandeniers, Dartagnans and Adopte un Château are proud to present their new project of collective purchase :
Purchasing collectively a monument of our heritage is an innovative concept imagined by these two partners. The aim here is not only to prevent a castle from ruin but also to give it a second life, through the creation of tourism, and economic activities.
All projects result from a common desire to offer a new business model to preserve our monuments.
Our vision is to raise people awareness about the promotion and preservation of our heritage, too often abandoned.
Purchasing collectively a monument will necessarily incur: saving a monument in danger, develop an economically viable activity in its territory and create a strong community around it.
Our objectives are simple: build, be involved, think and innovate TOGETHER.
This fortified castle from the end of the 15th century has been waiting for its rebirth for years. It is labeled Monument Historiques.
The impressive building burnt during the Vendée Wars in 1796 and needs today lots of work.
Because its history is fabulous, tragic and deeply anchored in its territory, we could not let this fortified castle abandoned.
Our project for this castle was born from a double will : to bring with us thousands of enthusiastic people in a new adventure and make them actors of this new project !
The Ebaupinay castle, located in the Deux-Sèvres department, is just 45 km away from la Mothe Chandeniers. This very close proximity to La Mothe, will create synergies from 2019 with twin tickets, events and thus advance faster on the rescue programs and restoration of Ebaupinay and Mothe Chandeniers.
The two castles being very different, the tourist offers offered on the 2 sites will be very complementary and of course beneficial for the faster development of the 2 projects.
Dartagnans and Adopte un Château join their forces once again to offer a great rescue project and allow you to become co-lords of this fortifies castle.
We will build the future its future together and become its guardians.
As for the collective purchase of the Château de la Mothe Chandeniers, the fortified castle of the Ebaupinay will be purchased with an SAS company (Simplified joint-stock company). Each donor will have the opportunity to become a shareholder and therefore a co-owner of the fortified castle. Becoming a shareholder will require a symbolic payment of 1€ per share, which will be asked at the end of the campaign.
An online platform will be created to allow each shareholder to be aware of what is done at the castle (work, events, etc). The platform will also be used as place where shareholders can vote and give their ideas about the future of the caste.
Making an abandoned ruin become a collectively restored piece of work is definitely the best way to protect our heritage.
The new original box
This box is magic...
It contains access to the Ebaupinay fortified castle ownership.
And a membership card.
Welcome to the Dartagnans x Adopte un château Club!
You are now in possession of a heritage treasure.
Together, we are thousands...
To purchase it or offer it to a relative, simply choose the counterpart "La box Ma part du Château" at 60 €. Inside is a membership card with a single number. If you want to take more than one box, simply click on the + before making your payment.
The boxes will be sent at the end of the campaign in November 2018. This is an ideal and unique gift for Christmas!
For each box purchased, 1€ will be given back to restoration projects of endangered monuments.
By buying this box, you contribute to the preservation of our heritage.
The Middle Age is often described as a dark and dirty period, during which wars and illnesses killed incessantly in the cities and in the countryside.
However, the medieval period is a period full of innovations, which allowed enormous evolutions in fields like medicine, art, architecture, etc.
Our vision: Make you travel in time and live a unique experience at the Ebaupinay castle, which represents perfectly the Middle Age.
Our project plans a full immersion in this period, often mis considered by History.
Daily life, construction, art of defence, art of combat and so much other things make of this era a fascinating period for many people.
The total reconstruction and animation project of the Ebaupinay fortified castle will be thought as a great medieval work, as it could have existed more than 500 years ago.
Our aim is to make you live an unforgettable experience and to create a place where co-lords will be able to debate and discuss about experimental archeology.
Let’s dive in the medieval era in the most realistic way possible!
Let’s participate to work and learn the medieval construction techniques.
Let’s initiate yourselves to the art of war and military defense.
Live the medieval history as if you had lived at this time.
It is not always easy to reign over its lands, at the Ebaupinay castle, you will be a Lord but you will also have to join the work.
The first years of the project will allow us to organize the daily life of the work and of the lordship. We will have to share the tasks, organize the life at the castle, manage the materials and the supply chain.
To organize the project, we want to create an executive comity for the SAS, which will manage the financial and modern side of the project and an aldermen council, which will manage justice, security, taxes and the organization of the lordship. Their decrees will rule the daily life at the domain and manage the different activities organized at the castle.
This project will lead to a special organization, with job corporations and other rules, which will make you feel like if you were living at the Middle Age.
To do so, all jobs will be needed: masons, carpenters, stonemasons but also blacksmiths, peasants, men-at-arms, cooks, laundress, seamstress, baker, merchants, saddler. These are jobs that could bring the castle back to life.
The project will be an immersive experience, of which you will be the actors. Depending on your actions, you will receive rewards, which will allow you to progress in the domain: clothes patterns, ornaments, equipment…
By interacting with other actors of the project, you will write the new story of the castle.
In a classis restoration project, the financing is used to buy materials and pay the providers of the work. To do our immersive medieval work, we will proceed in another way.
This is why we choose to set up an evolutive project: each step crossed will allow the creation of different workshops managed by professionals. Their goal will be to provide us the necessary materials for the total restoration of the castle.
The materials will be used like they were in the Middle Age.
The restoration program will require us to use medieval techniques and will be totally done y the community by the community of the fortified castle of the Ebaupinay, composed by volunteers and professionals.
The rescue project of the Ebaupinay castle is based on its capacity to be autonomous towards its restoration program.
The next step of work will allow to re-create a more realistic medieval life by setting up stalls, taverns etc.
All the aspects of daily life at this era will be reconstituted.
Our main objectives? Create a real medieval work where each co-lord will have a role to play and will be able to participate directly in the rebirth of the Ebaupinay castle.
Finally, we would like to mint our own currency : the aubépine
Our idea is to set an intern economy at the domain. We will install workshops allowing you to earn your own money. This money will help you evolve quickly in the project by purchasing equipment. Tournaments, trade, sales of production, etc ...
So many options available to evolve and make your dreams come true.
The castle of the Ebaupinay is named after the hawthorn (Latin: alba-spina), which means "white thorn"(in French : Aubépine). The Ebaupinay is therefore the place topped with white thorns, hawthorns.
Copper aubépine, tin aubépine and silver aubépine
1 silver aubépine = 4 tin aubépines = 16 copper aubépines
First, the tokens will be distributed to the co-lords according to their participation in the adventure and during the volunteer works. It will not be possible to buy aubépines.
For the beginning of this new adventure, we set up a special offer :
4 boxes purchased = 4 copper aubépines
8 boxes purchased = 4 tin aubépines (16 copper hawthorns)
12 boxes purchased = 4 silver aubépines (16 tin blades or 64 copper hawthorns)
(Delivery of aubépine after the construction of the workshop, you will not receive them with you boxes).
All the amounts include all costs linked to the creation of each element:
study costs and animation of volunteer works.
This demanding reconstruction is a real adventure, during which we will have to get to know or simply recover lost techniques of this century. Those difficulties will demand the intervention and the remuneration of specialists of this period.
As in many projects related to heritage, the attractivity and tourist visits are very important.
The medieval work of the medieval castle of the Ebaupinay will allow the welcoming of public and tourists from all over the world. It will allow us to finance a part of the work of the project.
Once the castle will be opened to the public, we hope to quickly reach 50 to 60 thousands of visitors per year and therefore balance our accounts.
The visitors will also be able to participate to the different work, to live just for a moment the daily life of one of the co-lords the Ebaupinay castle. This way, they will participate to the restoration of the domain and to its own self-financing.
We will have to find local materials for all the work, which we will exploit ourselves.
Other income sources will be considered such as organizing events, movie shootings and goodies production.
The preliminary study for the restoration of the Ebaupinay caste, which was realized in May 2019 by Mr. François Jeanneau, chief architect of the “Monuments Historiques” let us think that a total reconstruction is possible.
First, we will have to update the different analysis made at this time.
As the fortified castle is labeled Monuments Historiques, we will have to work with well-known experts from the French administration (Direction Régionale des affaires culturelles, Service territorial de l’architecture et du patrimoine).
However, let’s not forget that the specificity of this building site is that all the work will be realized by actors of the project: you, co-lords.
The work will be organized as 500 years ago: master carpenters, using squirrels cage cranes, stonecutters, blacksmiths.
No companies, trucks or cranes.
(NB: All workshops are independent, but they can happen simultaneously).
Bring a medieval atmosphere back to the castle
We will have to remove all anachronic elements from the castle. Most of those elements are recent constructions.
Lock ourselves behind walls and ditches
Make the castle look like a stronghold house again:
- Bring water in the ditches: We have to dig staves to make them look like they used to be.
- The entrance of the castle: the portal of the castle was destroyed and needs to be re-created with its big door for carts and its pedestrian door. The sleeping bridge, which was built later, will maybe be replaced by a drawbridge someday.
Rebuild the castle, the farm-buildings and its daily life
Our will is to begin to think about living spaces. The rehabilitation of the first floor will lead to a reconstruction of the kitchens. Later we will be able to adapt the first floor of the castle, the “noble floor”, which welcomed lords at the time.
We would also like to rebuild the surroundings houses. To do so, we would have to create another building site to accommodate the workers and to store the materials.
Recreate the village
There was probably a village around the castle we should bring it back to life together.
An army to defend the work!
A castle without knights was unbelievable at the time, it is therefore very important to have men watching the castle during the works.
In February 1458, letters from the King of France Charles VII granted the knight François de Vendel the permission to fortify his hostel of Ebaupinaye. The knight used this authorization to build a typical house of medieval military architecture of the fifteenth century.
This square medieval fortress, surrounded by moats, itself spanned by a bridge revealing the existence of an old drawbridge, is lined at each of its corners of 4 large towers, and a fifth on its main curtain.
A crenellated parapet, resting on an elegant belt of machicolation, crowns the top of the towers and curtain walls all around the castle. It brings a majestic character to the castle, and full of charm.
Above rise the gables, which carried the frames, with their large braces windows. Other mullioned windows are pierced in the curtain walls, mainly on the facade.
However, the towers and open access have only a few narrow openings which could be used for shooting.
The coat of arms of the Vendel family, which is engraved above one of the windows, on the facade, bears witness of the construction in the 15th century, since the Ebaupinaye ceased to belong to them in the next century.
The fortress house of Ebaupinaye was built when the royal authorization was granted to François de Vendel to turn the "old host" into a fortress.
Cadastral map
Aerial view of the Ebaupinay castle (©Google Map)
Everyone can become a shareholder
Allow thousands of people to have a say in the future of the castle is not easy.
We have written a technical note about the project that we imagined for the Chateau de l’Ebaupinay, presenting the major axes of security, development and the business plan.
All details are available on the technical note of the operation by clicking below :
If the amount of €550 000 is reached, then we will create a SAS (Société par Actions Simplifiée) which will become the owner of the castle.
The shareholders of this SAS will be constituted by the donors who will pay a symbolic additional € 1 for the constitution of the company.
The liability of a shareholder is limited to its capital contribution; the risk is therefore limited to 1€ per share. Being a shareholder gives you the right to participate in the life and management of the project. You will have the right to vote at General Assemblies and will thus take part in decisions that will affect the future of the fortified castle.
Depending on its financing needs, the company may proceed to other fundraising activities where shareholders who wish to increase their equity stake will be offered.
- by an online donation on this page, after registration and connection on www.dartagnans.fr (from a 1€ to 999€ donation)
- by bank transfer on this page, after registration and connection on www.dartagnans.fr (from a 1000€ donation)
- For French bank accounts only: by sending a check (to the order of Adopte un Château), specifying your email address, and including the sending fees (11€ for 1 box, 13€ for 2 boxes, 15€ for 3 boxes, 17€ for 4 boxes) if you purchased a box, to the following address:
Dartagnans
Campagne Château de l’Ebaupinay
1 rue de Châteaudun
75009 Paris France
To verify your delivery amount, click on the "box" reward, and then on the "+" up until you obtain the desired number of boxes.
For each box sold, 1€ will be donated to the Adopte a Château association, which helps to restore endangered landmarks.
By buying a box, you support at your level the French heritage and you have a say on the use of your donation: you will be able to vote for the projects that you wish to support.
A dedicated fund will be specially created by the Adopte a château association :
Adopte chateau is an association law 1901, composed only of volunteers, which aims to help owners (public, private or associations) in the development of their project.
Adopte Un Château accompanies, in addition to the projects of the Château de la Mothe Chandeniers and Château de l’Ébaupinay, twenty projects across France.
It seemed important to us to radiate our ideas about an innovative and collective conception of our heritage !
Beyond a rich history, heritage has an economic aspect. A castle, big or small, is an important actor of the local development: it creates mobilization, jobs and attractiveness for the territory.
This symbolic participation of all donors is also a way to allow the association to develop, organize and thus participate in the rescue of even more castles.
Dartagnans is a French startup creating innovative concepts around the preservation and the development of our cultural heritage.
Adopts un Château is an association that aims to save endangered castles. It tries to find original ways to restore monuments.
