Château de Roquefixade

Roquefixade, in the Ariège, means 'fissured rock', referring to the huge natural cleft filled by a stone arch of the castle. The fortress follows the shape of the rocky spur.

The royal architects concentrated the defences on the most vulnerable side, the north-east, surrounding the buildings with a first curtain wall 40 metres long, which partly survives. The castle had two superimposed enclosures like a figure eight. It was entered through an outer gate in the bailey wall, then up a ramp (the footpath on the left) and through a gate tower with a murder hole. The entrance to the second, higher enclosure, of which some remains survive, had two narrow successive gates.

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