Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Peyrat, located in Tourbes in the Hérault, came into being in the 16th century when Peyrat's family, established in Pézenas in the 15th century, transformed a simple house of fields into a fortified castle. This house, then called the Montplaisir farmhouse, is decorated with towers and embellished in the seventeenth century by remarkable architectural elements, such as a staircase with balusters and frescoes in the chapel. The estate adopts a U-shaped plan, inspired by Gallo-Roman villas, with a central courtyard surrounded by houses.

In the 18th century, the estate came into the hands of the Reboul family, notably François-Jacques Reboul, a Jansenist figure who would have lowered the towers by austerity and renamed the place in Peyrat domain. The castle preserves defensive elements such as an entrance porch surmounted by a dovecote, as well as a chapel decorated with 17th century murals depicting saints in Camaieu. Its spatial organization, with a court of the owner and a court of the farmer, reflects a dual agricultural and seigneurial vocation.

Partially classified as historical monuments in 1983 (perron, chapel, facades), the castle of Peyrat illustrates the evolution of a rural residence in an aristocratic domain, marked by the religious and architectural influences of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The buildings, arranged around two square courtyards, bear witness to an organisation typical of the major Languedoc areas, between wine-growing and social representation.

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