Introduction to 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.
Like
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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