Timeline

Heritage classified

Origin and history

According to tradition, the château de la Chapoulie was built during the English occupation in the 15th century. This fort, alternately occupied by the French or the English, consists of a massive round tower and a second more slender tower. The whole, rather modest, evokes a military den than a real castle, the two towers do not seem to have been integrated into a larger architectural ensemble. The main tower probably served as a house body, while the second housed a staircase and a few small rooms. Two mâchicoulis protected the accesses: one defended the door of the stair tower, the other an opening on the north face of the main tower.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, modifications were made, such as the drilling of small windows and the addition of large triangular pediment windows on the top of the main tower. In the 18th century, a house on the ground floor was joined on both sides of the big tower, supplemented by a building of commons in return on the east side. About 50 metres south, an octagonal dovecote, mounted on eight stone pillars equipped with rodent collars, bears witness to the economic importance of this type of construction at the time. Its roof ends with a lantern topped by a hemispherical cap.

The Château de la Chapoulie has been listed as a historic monument since 12 July 1965 for its facades, roofs and dovecote, and is now a private property not open to the public. Its architecture reflects the successive adaptations of a building originally conceived as a defence point during the Franco-English tensions, before becoming a more comfortable residence in the following centuries.

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