Le Castellas of Saint-Bonnet-de-Salendrinque

Castle Le Castellas of Saint-Bonnet-de-Salendrinque, France, was established in the medieval period by Carolingian builders and probably occupies the site of an earlier Roman settlement linked to gypsum trade.

Evidence points to a fortified position here from 864, when a Carolingian fortress known as Castellas stood on a rocky spur in a bend of the Salendrinque. Its location permitted control of the routes between Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort and Anduze and the protection of nearby farms. The site’s long occupation may reflect continuity from a Roman oppidum that served local quarry commerce.

By the eleventh and twelfth centuries local lordship and ecclesiastical ties are clear. Literary records from 1042 show the Gausfredi family, lords of Saint-Bonnet, as vassals of the house of Anduze. The church of Saint-Bonnet was founded in 1142, and a papal document lists both the castle and the church among the bishop of Nîmes’s possessions. On 19 March 1174–75 Bernard VI d’Anduze performed homage to Aldebert d’Uzès, bishop of Nîmes, for the castle, confirming its place in regional feudal relations.

At the close of the twelfth century the knight Pierre de Barre, a companion of Guillaume de Nogaret, made the keep his residence and his family maintained custodianship until François de Taulignan’s death in 1544. Over the medieval centuries the site was enlarged repeatedly, producing the present L-shaped footprint and enclosing curtain walls that enclose updated domestic and service spaces.

Following François de Taulignan’s sale of the seigneurie to Antoine de Bucelli, ownership passed through the Bucelli, Calvet, and Vignolles families, with parcels divided and resold until the estate passed, after 1596, to Isabeau des Urcières de Gaudette, who carried out decorative works. Major alterations in the early seventeenth century included raising the north tower in 1617 and the south tower in 1620, inserting mullioned windows into the keep’s enclosing walls, and building the keep’s upper vault and paving the main courtyard in 1619. Work was declared complete in 1621, but further building stopped from 1622 because of Protestant uprisings and may have remained unfinished at the patron’s death.

The De Vignolles family kept the seigneurie until the Revolution. On 4 and 5 April 1792 revolutionaries set the north tower on fire, leaving it partly ruined, and in 1794 the estate was sold as national property. After the Revolution the complex was converted into a magnanerie for silkworm production and then used for general agricultural purposes. The buildings later fell into decay and were stripped of fittings. Private purchase in 1973 began a program of careful rehabilitation, and the property has been listed as a monument historique since 26 December 1980.