An English Castle in Puebla

The main sightseeing destination on our weekend excursion in the state of Puebla was the former hacienda of Chautla.  The estate was granted to the Marquis of Selva Negra in the 1700s.  The property was expropriated following the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and divided among local peasants.  The manor house fell into ruin, but was restored and turned into a resort hotel.  We didn't stay there, but we toured the beautiful grounds.

The gate to the manor house

The hacienda chapel

From the terrace of the house there is a view of the garden.

In the 1820s, Soledad Gutiérrez, the widow of the fourth Marquis of Selva Negra, remarried to an Englishman by the name of Thomas Gillow.  Gillow was a jeweler who had moved to Mexico City and established himself with the local high society.  After marrying the "marquesa" he gave up his jewelry business and devoted himself to the running of the hacienda. He made numerous farming innovations such as the importation of the first metal plough to Mexico.  

When his wife died intestate, Gillow found himself at risk of losing everything, so, in order to maintain ownership of the hacienda, he married his stepdaughter (one of the Soledad's children from her first marriage).  That marriage produced a son, Eulogio Gillow, who inherited the estate upon his father's death in 1877.  

Eulogio was a priest and rose in rank to become the Archbishop of Oaxaca.  However he also followed in his father's footsteps and continued to run the hacienda and to introduce modern agricultural technology.  He built a dam on the property and constructed Latin America's first hydroelectric plant.  He planned to establish an agricultural college, and he built a house in the style of an English castle to serve as a residence for the teachers.  The "castle" is one of the most picturesque, albeit incongruous, sights in the state of Puebla.  It is a popular tourist destination, and has served as a setting for several Mexican soap operas.

 The view from the roof of the "castle"

Eulogio Gillow's plans for an agricultural college never came to pass. With the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution Gillow went into exile in California, and did not return to Mexico until shortly before his death in 1922.

The "castle" and the property around the lake do not belong to the adjacent hotel, but are operated as a cultural and recreational park by the state of Puebla.