Château de Pourcheyrolles

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de Pourcheyrolles stands in ruins on a basalt rocky spur more than thirty metres high, at the confluence of the Fontaulière and the Pourseille, in the commune of Montpezat-sous-Bauzon in Ardèche. It was built around the middle of the 14th century by Cardinal Pierre Flandrin, a native of Borée in Vivarais, who rose to the highest ecclesiastical offices under the obedience of the Avignon popes and placed his residence under their suzerainty. On his death in 1380, his nephew Jean Flandrin, canon of Viviers, later Archbishop of Auch and cardinal in 1390, inherited the estate. The Flandrin family kept the castle until the 19th century, when Marie-Anne Flandrin brought it as a dowry to Louis-François-Joseph de Fages de Chaulnes; at the beginning of the 20th century, Charles-Gaspard de Fages de Chaulnes and his son still owned it. Designed more as a luxurious seigneurial residence than as a defensive fortress, the building consisted of a square mass flanked by two round towers defending the entrance, with fireplaces and openings of elaborately worked shapes. The dismantling of its fortifications is said to have begun during the Wars of Religion. Privately owned, the site cannot be visited today, but its remains are visible from a viewpoint laid out along departmental road 536.