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Origin and history

Sarron Castle, originally named Les Forges, is located in Fourneaux in the Loire department. Its present name comes from the Sarron family, which occupied it for more than 350 years from the end of the 15th century. Originally, the village of Fourneaux was divided into two parts, including Fourneaux Sarron, where the castle is located. The name "Saron" gradually replaced that of the Forges in the early twentieth century.

The first bases of the castle probably date back to the 13th century, although traces of an older settlement on a nearby hill are mentioned. In the 15th century, two or three towers were added, one for entrance and another on the west facade. The present structure, with its east and west buildings linking the entrance tower to the dungeon, was established in the sixteenth century. An inner courtyard with arcades on the ground floor and a gallery on the second floor was set up, as well as a stone staircase.

In the 17th century, the castle was surrounded by a protective wall outside the moat, decorated with four square towers (three of which remain). A terrace with a retaining wall and a "channel" (long and narrow water room) were created, completed later by a pond in the 20th century. Between 1850 and 1870, modernizations removed the moat and altered the windows. A neogothic chapel, consecrated in 1846, replaced an old one dedicated to Saint Laurent.

The fief belonged first to the family of Thelis (XIIIth-15th centuries), then was exchanged in 1490 with the family of Sarron, native of Theizé in Beaujolais. The Sarrons, responsible for major transformations, kept the castle until the 19th century. The last Marquis de Sarron, involved in Lyon projects and shot during the Revolution, handed the estate over to his daughter Coralie Artaud de la Ferriere. The property then passed to the Roux de la Plagne, then to Louis Neyrand (1887), whose family still owned it.

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