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Origin and history

The castle of Candie, or Saint-Simon-le-Vieux, is a strong house located in Toulouse, whose oldest parts date back to the 13th and 14th centuries. Built for the Ysalguier family, lords of Saint-Simon and powerful Toulouse merchants, it was surrounded by ditches and equipped with a church for local inhabitants. This square castle, with walls pierced by murderers, illustrates Toulouse's medieval defensive architecture, with Gothic traces such as an ogival door and sill windows added in the seventeenth century.

In 1498, the estate was sold to Jean Laysani, a Toulouse notary, and then passed in 1540 to the Chabanès family, councillors in Parliament. In the 17th century, the seigneury was divided between the Caulet, Delpech and Mariotte families, before being reunited by Jean-François-Marie Candie, treasurer general of France. The latter actively developed the agricultural estate, including vineyards and cereals, and initially refused to yield the estates of the castle church when he moved in 1779.

The French Revolution abolished seigneurial rights without plundering the Candie family, which kept the castle until the 19th century. Transmitted to Jean-Théodore and then Guillaume-Alfred de Candie, the estate then moved to the Bary and Blay de Gaïx families. In 1976, Toulouse City Hall acquired the site, preserving its wine-growing activity through the municipal agricultural administration, the largest in France. The castle, registered as a historical monument in 2001, now houses wine-growing facilities and exceptionally opens for visits and tastings.

The Candie estate, with an area of 18.68 hectares, includes a park, a water body and 273 hectares of agricultural land, including 25 hectares of vines producing 30,000 bottles annually under the name Tolosan County. The medieval chapel, dedicated to Notre-Dame-de-Pitié, housed a 14th century bas-relief (now at the Augustine Museum) and a Pietà from the 15th to the 16th centuries. The site, closed to the public in normal times, participates in Heritage Days with tastings and visits to the park.

Architecturally, the square castle preserves scauguettes, a northeast tower and Gothic elements such as rose-shaped windows and an ogival door. Inside, the vaulted vestibule features sculpted caps of women's heads. The estate also includes mills, green spaces and an osera, testimonies of its medieval and agricultural past. Since 1976, the municipal government has been cultivating cereals and organic wines, while welcoming hives and a Toulosain Farm Drive.

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