Forteresse de Crozant
A kilometre of ruins on a spur
At the confluence of the Creuse and the Sédelle, seventy-five metres above the water. The remains stretch nearly a kilometre, across three successive courtyards.
Mostly the first quarter of the 13th century, with a building campaign in the mid-15th. Listed as a historic monument in 1926, then given full classified status in 1997.
Four towers survive, named in the records: the Tour du Renard, the Tour Collin, the Tour Écorchée, the Tour Carrée. The enclosure walls also remain, along with a chapel, and a tower known as the water tower, which protected access to the river.
It's the founding subject of what's known as the Crozant school, a school with no master: nearly five hundred painters came to work in these valleys between 1830 and 1950. Armand Guillaumin settled here in 1893. The landscape they painted changed in 1926, when the Éguzon dam flooded part of the valley downstream.
Allow an hour for a self-guided visit. The site is not accessible by wheelchair or pushchair, and the terrain calls for sturdy shoes.