Château de Boze

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de Boze stands in the commune of Bozas, in the Ardèche. Its origins date back to the 13th century, when it consisted of a simple square tower and a seigneurial hall, surrounded by a palisade. In the 14th and 15th centuries, a period of unrest, the Saint-Didier family (1328–1379) and then the Joyeuse family (1379–1526) considerably strengthened the building, adding a "visette" (a spiral staircase tower) and a curtain wall flanked by several round towers, which also enclosed the church and the village. The seigneury then passed to the Montmorin Saint-Hérem family, then from 1673 to the Du Bourg family, who had it raised to a marquisate in 1693. The defensive works were probably dismantled during the siege of 1577, in the Wars of Religion. The present building, a large rectangular structure with an east-facing terrace, was probably begun in the 18th century and refitted at the end of the 19th century by the Dumaine family. It retains defensive remains such as stone ramparts, round towers and the corbels that once supported a bartizan. Now divided into several inhabited private properties, the château cannot be visited inside, but its exterior is freely accessible from the streets and square of the village.