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Château St-Ferriol
Late Medieval Castle in the South of France

 

The Château de St-Ferriol

 

The Château de St-Ferriol is a château-fort (castle), built in the sixteenth century towards the end of the period of medieval castle building. Gunpowder and firearms had rendered traditional castle building techniques obsolete, and castles were still being built only in remote areas - like Scotland and the Languedoc - where local wars still raged.

Château de St-Ferriol: Kitchen ChandelierLike other castles in the area it is located at the highest point of a village, next to the church. The village would have built up around it, the villagers living in a symbiotic relationship with the chatelain. They would have provided labour - cooks, cleaners, retainers, guards, clerks, and so on - perhaps fifty or more. In times of trouble he would provide a safe refuge, everyone repairing to the castle for safety, and to share in its defense.

Château de St-Ferriol: plan of the South-West bastion, ground floor Château de St-Ferriol: a typical cannonier - just big enough for the trumpet like muzzle of a sixteenth century arquebus - like the one that mortally wounded François de Plaigne, Baron de St-Ferriol at the Battle of Cruzy in 1586 The Château de St-Ferriol used the latest mililary techniques of the period, notably bastions placed at the four corners of a rectangular building enclosing an inner court. These bastions are furnished with gun ports (cannoniers) to provide covering fire to all external walls. These cannoniers were the logical successors to traditional loopholes or arrowslits.

One of the sixteen surviving cannoniers,
a kind of meutrier designed for an arquebus (an early kind of hand gun)

 

Château de St-Ferriol: Kitchen chimney Later changes, made around 1600 made the building a more comfortable residence. Most of the old medieval windows were replaced by the latest Renaissance style mullioned windows, providing much more light. (A few medieval windows survive, including all of the windows in one room). A new stone staircase was put in, and six monumental fireplaces were build.

Château de St-Ferriol: Drawing of the front door Very little seems to have happened to the château since this time, except that it seems to have been partitioned into two, once in the seventeenth century, and then again in the early twentieth century. There are a large number of architectural puzzles - walls that are clearly not original, others that appear to predate the present building, no sign of a well, certain work carried out in a different stone, an external door on the first floor leading nowhere, a particularly unusual fireplace on the top floor, and so on.

Château de St-Ferriol: Plan view Château de St-Ferriol: sketch of a fireplace The fabric of the building has suffered badly since the French Revolution, and the building had not been occupied since the early twentieth century. It was used as a farm building for many years, and two of the bastions were used as quaries for village houses. One wing, the old Presby fell down in the early twentieth century.

Château de St-Ferriol: sketch of a door The château is now undergoing a long a programme of restauration, the objective being to return it, as far as possible, to its state in around 1600, using original materials and techniques.

 

 

A Yett is a metal gate, used as a defensive measure on small doors

 

 

 

 
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