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Entraygues-sur-Truyère
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Founded: 1278-1290Category: Castles and fortifications in France
Historical period: Late Capetians (France)
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Château d'Entraygues was built by Henry II, Count of Rodez, between 1278 and 1290. Entraygues was a strategic point at the crossroads of transportation routes, at the junction of Auvergne and the Lot Valley.
The first conurbation must have been at St-Georges (remains an old, Gothic style edifice, far more important when it was a parish church, on a terrace).
From the end of the construction of the fortifed castle, in 1290, the town battlements were built with crenels, defence towers and front doors (there would have been a drawbridge on each side), the whole surrounded by moats.
The castle was looted and detroyed in 1587. Partially razed in 1604, it was rebuilt in the 17th century by Henri de Monvallat, the new lord of Entraygues. From the 13th century, only remain the two towers, the stairwell, the left vaulted room of the ground floor. From the fortifications, only remain some sections of the castle's outer wall, front doors of which archways have been removed in the 19th century during the construction of the new church partly inaugurated on October 24th 1866. Most of the old round towers were removed then and their stones were used to build the religious edifice.
References:Dating from the 15th century, Kisimul is the only significant surviving medieval castle in the Outer Hebrides. It was the residence of the chief of the Macneils of Barra, who claimed descent from the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages. Tradition tells of the Macneils settling in Barra in the 11th century, but it was only in 1427 that Gilleonan Macneil comes on record as the first lord. He probably built the castle that dominates the rocky islet, and in its shadow a crew house for his personal galley and crew. The sea coursed through Macneil veins, and a descendant, Ruari ‘the Turbulent’, was arrested for piracy of an English ship during King James VI’s reign in the later 16th century.
Heavy debts eventually forced the Macneil chiefs to sell Barra in 1838. However, a descendant, Robert Lister Macneil, the 45th Chief, repurchased the estate in 1937, and set about restoring his ancestral seat. It passed into Historic Scotland’s care in 2000.
The castle dates essentially from the 15th century. It takes the form of a three-storey tower house. This formed the residence of the clan chief. An associated curtain wall fringed the small rock on which the castle stood, and enclosed a small courtyard in which there are ancillary buildings. These comprised a feasting hall, a chapel, a tanist’s house and a watchman’s house. Most were restored in the 20th century, the tanist’s house serving as the family home of the Macneils. A well near the postern gate is fed with fresh water from an underground seam. Outside the curtain wall, beside the original landing-place, are the foundations of the crew house, where the sailors manning their chief’s galley had their quarters.