Château de Serray

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de Serray (also spelled Seray) is a medieval ruin located in the commune of Préaux, in the Ardèche, about 2 km west of the village at an altitude of nearly 880 metres. The site is thought to have been occupied as early as Antiquity by a Roman watch post, before a fortification was built there, probably in the 11th century, to keep watch over the surrounding valleys. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the castle belonged to the Pagan de Mahun family: it is recorded in the possession of Aymon de Pagan in 1278, then of Aymon IV de Pagan, whose son Jean Pagan succeeded him around 1298; a Guigonnet de Seray, bailiff, is also mentioned in 1294. The building comprised a keep or square refuge tower about 5 metres per side, with thick, roughly dressed walls, supplemented by a later rectangular building of about 24 by 16 metres, a curtain wall and a watchtower, as well as traces of a ditch. The absence of ground-level doors and the scarcity of openings suggest a defensive and refuge function rather than a residential one. Archaeological excavations were carried out on the site between 1975 and 1979 under the direction of Jean-Yves Aulagnier. Today a fragmentary ruin overgrown with vegetation, the site remains freely accessible but is not secured.