Locations

This castle, located in the town of Saint-Martin-Boulogne, in the corner formed by the Wicardenne and Rupembert paths, is raised from one floor to the ground floor and topped with slate roofs, which are adorned of a few beautiful neighbors. It consists of a main building with two back wings, all set on a terrace with balusters. The oldest parts of this construction, altered and enlarged in the 19th century, are from the 18th century. The outbuildings, of some importance, and largely from the same century, represent what remains of the castle farm. The beautifully wooded park with a beautiful body of water occupies the upstream part of the Denacre valley (you can discover a chestnut tree over 300 years old).

This property was formerly called the Hil. The "house of Hil", already mentioned at the very beginning of the 16th century by the burrow of Saint Wulmer and by the relief register of this abbey, with the rieu, the bridge and the enclosed gardens of the place of Hil, belonged to the Middle Ages to a family of that name. A Willaume from HIL was mayor of Boulogne in 1402 for the ninth time. Firmin du HIL who lived at the end of the 15th century, sold the family estate to Robert COLLARD and Jean CAILLETTE.

Under Louis XIV, the owner of the Hil was Oudart BALLIN, plowman in Saint-Martin. The latter sold it on July 20, 1684 to Master Olivier LE LASSEUR, priest of the Congregation of the Mission, superior of the seminary of Boulogne; the Vincentians having received at the end of 1682, the direction of the said seminary, which had just been founded in Boulogne and was then built in the Grande-Rue. They installed at Denacre, a pleasure house reported in 1777.

At the start of the Revolution, after the Nation seized the goods of the clergy, the property was awarded on September 14, 1791, to citizen Hubert DUCARNOY, trader in Boulogne. Under the Empire, the latter embarked on the arming of privateers. Following his death, the property fell by partition on July 31, 1831, to his daughter Rosalie-Henriette, widow of François-Louis MALRAISON, who herself sold it to Mr. Hercule ADAM and to his wife née Rose WISSOCQ. Monsieur Hercule ADAM belonged to this dynasty of bankers which was closely linked to the development and prosperity of Boulogne in the 19th century. He was also the brother of Alexandre ADAM, who, mayor of Boulogne for 18 years, made his hometown a modern city. On October 4, 1901, Madame Amaury de LA BARRE de NANTEUIL, née Rose-Adrienne ADAM, granddaughter of Hercules ADAM, sold the Denacre to an Englishman, Jules MOISE, Bank Manager in Croydon. The latter hardly benefited from this French property, because on February 1, 1906, his consorts sold it to Monsieur Jules de BOUTEILLER, in whose hands it only remained for a few years. In May 1913, the Denacre was acquired by Monsieur FAUVARQUE, who occupied it until his death in 1963. Madame FAUVARQUE was the sister of the writer André MABILLE de PONCHEVILLE who loved this property; which then passed into the hands of Madame LESSENS PROUVOST, then to various other owners.

Note two particularities in this castle:

On the one hand it has a bell, which bears the date of 1809 and which comes from a Swedish ship, the Storfursten which ran aground at Pointe-aux-Oies on December 24, 1837, in "a stormy sea and a thick mist" .

On the other hand, under the eaves, is a very small oratory, the only window of which opens onto the ride of the clouds. On the painted walls are the emblems of the four evangelists, some fanciful coats of arms and in Greek inscriptions glorifying or imploring the Lord. All this apparently dates from the Second Empire. It is therefore to an ADAM that the development of this oratory should be attributed.