Chalmazel-Jeansagnière, Rhône 42920

1.5 hours from Lyon, crowning a promontory in a mountain resort, a medieval fortified château, listed as a historic monument. The property survives as one preserved architectural composition, its silhouette dominating the Forez landscape. Four levels rise on a pentagonal plan of irregular sides. Cylindrical towers flank every corner but the south-eastern, which meets the quadrangular keep, and the five wings enclose an inner courtyard. Gabled roofs of barrel tiles cover the main house, conical ones the round towers. Beneath them, facades of granite rubble stone under pale render set mullioned windows alongside later openings and surviving elements of fortification. A parapet walk carried on corbelled machicolations runs along part of the wall tops, while a Renaissance doorway records the alterations made when the stronghold became a seigneurial house. The stone holds several centuries of history and successive adaptation, and the nobility of its original character survives them all.