A beautiful château that bear witness of a bygone era on Mauritius

This restored mansion is surrounded by a garden and endless fields of sugar cane. It has been in the hands of the same family for more than 150 years. A visit to the park, the house and the orchards, gives a good idea of life on a sugar estate in the 19th century. Château de Labourdonnais is a beautiful colonial château / mansion with authentic interior. Today it functions as a museum and is part of the Mauritian Heritage. It is still owned by the same family and they still produces rum and products made of fruit. The chimney from the old, original sugar factory is still intact. A ticket includes the park, the mansion and rum tasting at the restaurant located within in the park. There were no guided tours when we were here, but boards placed both outside and in the rooms did give us just about enough information to get an understanding of the estate and the era.

After parking the car we walked through the park and down this magnificent Allee de Interdances. This Allee leads to the mansion itself. We had to stop several times to admire the trees and the view of the house. We started with a walk around the house on the outside.

DOMANINE DE LABOURDONNAIS – THE HISTORY AND LAYOUT
The land that belongs to the estate, was bought in the 1770s with a plan of building a sugar mill. The mansion was built in1856 by Christian Wiehe. It still belongs to the Wiehe family. The interior is authentic and bear witness of French and British influence. The wallpapers are French, while the rooms has Victorian style furniture. The restoration startet in 2006 and took four years to complete.

At mansions of this size the kitchen was usually placed in a seperate building. This is the case here too. Our first stop was the former kitchen that also served as a store room for aging rum. Today it is used as a conference center.

The mansion is a two-story house, built in a neoclassical Vistorian style. The material that has been used, is mainly teak. The house has an impressive gallery / verandas, that runs all the way around the house. The way the veraranda is furnished with plants and small groups of chairs, gives an airy feeling. Several staircases on each side leads up to the veranda on the first floor.

A TOUR OF THE MANSION
We entered on the back side, presented our tickets and started our tour through the rooms on the first floor.

The dining room Room for storing Leading to the second floor

The first room was the dining room. All is set for a dinner with silverware and hand embroidered napkins. In addition to this room there are two rooms. One for storing and one where they kept the the silverware and different sets of china. From this room we could walk out to the veranda again. A staircase is leading to the second floor.

On the opposite side of the of the corridor we went to the living rooms and the study. One of the rooms have an impressive chandelier!

The study

The study is a rather small room, furnished with dark, wooden furniture. It was the place where the master of the estate would manage his domaine from. All his paper work might have been done in this room.

Staircase leading to the 2nd. floor Outside the master bedroom The former kitchen

A staircase leads to the second floor. Only one bedroom was furnished. A door leads from the bedrom to the veranda. From here we are above the main entrance. We get a good view of the fountain in front of the main entrance and the old kitchen. From here we went through several other rooms. Photographing was not allowed. These rooms have photos of the family on display, in addition to other private documents. I think some of these rooms also functioned as bedrooms when the house was inhabited.

Leading to the 1st floor The living quarters of the workers (?)

Once again we went outside. From here we can see the top of the old chimney. This chimney was built in 1820 and closed down as late as 1960. Besides sugar cane, the estate also has a countless number of fruittrees. Besides producing rum, they also produce marmelade, juices, dried fruit, jellies etc. You can buy that in the small shop connected to the restaurant where we had the tasting of rum produced on the estate.

A beautiful mansion and a great tour that gave us insight of life on a sugar estate during the colonial period. This was how the owner and his family lived. There is also a another side to the sugar industry. It was during the French colonial period that the sugar industry really flourished. This industry was based on slavery in the beginning. When slavery was abolished in 1835 the new colonial masters (Britain) had to import laboures, mainly from India.

When l looked at the old chimney, it made me think of another old chimney I visited a few weeks ago. A lady we met there, told us that when these old chimneys were built, it was custom to sacrifice a person and place the body underneath the chimney. I have seen so many old chimneys without knowing about this custom.

Check the link: @digi-me/a-reminder-of-the-sugar

Sources: Information boards and https://letsdiscovermauritius.com/blog/sugar-mills-chimneys-in-mauritius.html