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Origin and history

The castle of Vogüé is a former castle founded in the 12th century, renovated in the 15th and 17th centuries, located in the department of Ardèche. It was built by order of Raymond I of Vogüé at the end of the 12th century, then rebuilt in the 15th century by the Rochemure du Besset, which added four towers. The site, occupied as early as 1084 by the lords of Vogüé, drew revenue from the toll on the Ardèche, allowing the construction of a square fortress.

In the 17th century, Melchior I de Vogüé, a large bailiff of Vivarais, renovated the castle in the Renaissance style, creating a garden hanging above the filled moats. The castle is then abandoned after the installation of Charles de Vogüé at the castle of Aubenas. During the French Revolution, he was burned down, sold as a national property, then bought in 1839 by Léonce de Vogüé, who restored him and installed a school there run by the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Aubenas.

Since 1971, the castle, still owned by the Vogüé family, hosts temporary exhibitions and houses the collection of the engraver Jean Chièze. Partly inscribed in the historical monuments in 1969, it preserves architectural elements of the twelfth, fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, including a chapel renovated with elements of the chapel of Rochecolombe. The stained glass windows, created in 1980 by Alfred Manessier, complement his artistic heritage.

The castle presents itself as a vast quadrangular building flanked by four round towers, with facades pierced with sling windows and egg-eyes in the seventeenth century. It houses a 17th century salon and the Vivarais State Hall. Located on the edge of the Ardèche and at the foot of a limestone cliff, it dominates the village of Vogüé, classified as Les Plus Beaux Villages de France.

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