Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Is found its origins in the 12th century, when its oldest parts were built as a barn of the Cistercian Abbey of Bonnecombe. The estate extended over 200 hectares to the shores of Aveyron and served as a storage and farm site. The watch tower, added in the 14th century, reinforced its defensive and strategic role, located between the Roman road Rodez-Cahors and a drail of transhumance.

Under the regime of commende, the estate perished for lack of religious vocations, escaping by little from demolition before being sold as a national good during the Revolution. In 1811, Pierre Cabrol de Mouté bought it back, marking the beginning of a series of changes of owners. In 1850, Louis Marie Frédéric de Roquefeuil transformed it into a neo-Renaissance castle, modernizing the medieval farm into an aristocratic residence.

In the 19th century, Gustave Solanet, a megissier in Millau, made it his summer home and expanded the agricultural outbuildings for cereals and livestock. The castle was transmitted to his grandson Aymar Solanet in 1967 and was finally sold to the Cazelles family in 1990. Since then, the association Cisterciens en Rouergue has perpetuated the memory of the monks, valuing its architectural and historical heritage.

The architecture of the castle reflects these temporal strata: the medieval arch of the entrance, the Renaissance square tower, and the renovated house in 1850. The southern facades, decorated with larmiers, and the vast agricultural outbuildings testify to its adaptation to the economic and residential needs of the 19th and 20th centuries. The site remains a rare example of transition between monastic estate, farm, and residential castle.

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