Locksmith Garches, from place Saint-Louis to Buzenval

The centre clusters around the town hall, a small Napoleon III château on rue Claude-Liard, the église Saint-Louis, rebuilt in 1876, and place Saint-Louis, where the market is held on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. On avenue du Maréchal-Leclerc and rue de l’Abreuvoir, shops and tradespeople occupy narrow plots. On rue de Suresnes, the Pasteur B school, dating from 1907, shows the Garches style, millstone grit and brick. On an old door that rubs, the lock wears out: have it adjusted before you end up forcing the key.

The railway arrived in 1884, and a street was then cut from the station to the church. Today, the station district, dense and full of shops, is served by line L to Paris-Saint-Lazare. On avenue Foch stands a small 19th-century château, with a turret and a façade of red and beige brick. If you lose your keys on the way to catch the train and a paper with them bore your address, have the cylinder changed without delay. See lock replacement.

The north of Garches keeps the memory of the fighting of 19 January 1871, recalled by rue du 19-Janvier and rue du Colonel-de-Rochebrune. On rue de Buzenval, the cité du Docteur-Debat groups some twenty houses built from 1947 to 1956, and new homes occupy the former Debat estate. On rue du 19-Janvier, the domaine des Quatre-Vents, an English-style cottage, houses the municipal conservatoire. For a detached house, a multipoint lock protects far better than a deadbolt alone.

To the west, towards Vaucresson, are the Raymond-Poincaré hospital, built from 1932 to 1936, and the cité Poincaré, on allée de la Marche, the highest point of Garches at 162 metres. Along avenue de Brétigny come, one after the other, the Fondation Davaine, a Napoleon III residence with its park and belvedere tower, a small castle and a 19th-century cottage. For these old houses, a security lock can be added without replacing the original door, and a recent cylinder limits key copying.