Castles and panoramas

The T-shaped building has two perpendicular aisles, the most important facing east/west and the other facing north/south.The set takes place in a park with a courtyard and French gardens surrounded by an adobe and masonry enclosure of rubble to the north. The latter includes an imposing portal in wrought ironwork, located between two boss piles, next to a pavilion (brick on its east facade) topped by a slate roof at rapid slopes and sewers, topped with a zinc ridge. The castle rises to two levels, and is surmounted by a broken hipped roof, whose terrasson is pierced with curved dormers aligned in the openings of the façade, thus forming a level. The openings are arranged in regular bays on the north and west façade (symmetrical in that of a central door preceded by an opening for the north facade of the body is), while the gable is blind. Sober, the decoration is found only in a triple genoese crowning the facade, in a line of moulded splinters and in the two zinc roof ridge spikes.

The Chatelard occupies the end of a spur with very steep slopes, probably protecting a ditch.The defensive morphology of the site suggests that the occupation is ancient (11th century: fortification of land, or 13th century: stronghold of the Lay family). Today, the complex consists of two courtyards: the barnyard where the barn and a pavilion are located, overlooking a terrace on the south side and the high courtyard bordered by a retaining wall flanked by several circular towers and the dwelling. The base of a portion of a straight wall and a tower, built mainly in tuff blocks, could belong to the thirteenth century. The massive circular dungeon (perhaps with older bases) and most of the surrounding walls would have to be brought back to the second half of the 15th century (keyhole shooting slots). But it is at the beginning of the seventeenth century that the castle owes its current appearance: a large building built on two levels, composed with symmetry on either side of the monumental door giving access to a vaulted passage leading to the high court. The upper floor, illuminated by high mullioned windows and double cross-braces whose support forms a string, bears a roof with two sides and rumps, pierced with dormers and covered with scale tiles.