Brousse-le-Château

First mentioned in 935, Brousse castle was then no doubt only a modest fort watching over the Tarn. From the tenth to the fifteenth century, the fort gradually occupied the whole of the spur overlooking the village as the presence of the counts of Rouergue was asserted and then, from 1204, of the Arpajon family, one of whom would become duke and peer of France in the seventeenth century. Restored from 1963 by a volunteer association, the Vallée de l'Amitié, the fortified ensemble is now open to the public. Its inner courtyard is a place for seasonal shows; the lord's residence remodelled in the eighteenth century, the Prisoner's and Princess's towers house a local history museum as well as temporary exhibitions.

From the castle, paved lanes lead to the fortified fifteenth-century church, dedicated to Saint James the Greater and flanked by a cemetery with oratory, then by the old stone bridge over the Alrance to the village's lower street. Clinging to the slopes of the Alrance and the Tarn, the stepped terraces bear witness to the former presence of the vine, whose cultivation was for a long time, with that of the chestnut tree, Brousse-le-Château's main resource.

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