Photo : Torsade de Pointes / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Le château de Chalencon
The Château de Chalencon is at Saint-Pal-de-Chalencon, in Haute-Loire. The present building dates from the end of the fifteenth century and was designed in the taste of the early Renaissance. It was raised on the site of an older castle by Bertrand de Chalencon, bishop of Rodez, for his nephew Louis, who had just married Antoinette de Rochebaron. It passed in the seventeenth century to the house of Polignac.
The castle has undergone many alterations, and part of it now serves as a presbytery. You can notice Renaissance windows, a carved stone doorway, a barrel-vaulted gallery around an inner courtyard, as well as arrow slits, openings for firearms and bartizans. The great staircase of honour, in a well-preserved hexagonal tower, has 86 carved stone steps; the lower hall houses a stone fireplace seven metres long.
The town went through the region's wars without destruction and keeps its ramparts and fortified gates. The castle has been listed as a historic monument since 1995 and belongs to private owners.
