Montialoux Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Montialoux Castle, in Saint-Bauzile in the Lozère department, stands in ruins on terraces overlooking the Valdonnez and the valleys of the Nize and the Bramont. From the twelfth century it was held of the barons of Tournel, of whom it was one of the seats. Listed in 1588 by the Estates of Gévaudan among the strongholds to be destroyed, though there is no evidence that it was, it received a new residential building in the seventeenth century, as indicated by the date 1661 carved on the building. It was sold to Guillaume Perrier at the end of the eighteenth century, and a deed of 1932 already describes it as in ruins. The masonry curtain wall can still be made out, along with a circular tower attached to the residential building with a vaulted storey, a square tower to the north serving as a dovecote, a barrel-vaulted passage leading to the courtyard, the great residential building to the south with the remains of a monumental staircase with a hanging keystone, fireplaces, and the chapel of Saint-Jean. The ruins, privately owned and not secured, can be viewed from the outside.