Grangent Castle

Grangent Castle, locally known as Château de Grangent, lies on an island of the same name in the Grangent Reservoir in the Loire department in France.

The castle is first mentioned in 1173 in the context of agreements between the Count of Forez and the Church of Lyon, which indicates that Grangent was an established seigneurial stronghold by the late 12th century. Some sources indicate that the site may have been occupied as early as the 9th or 11th century.

During the Middle Ages and subsequent centuries, the castle was damaged, rebuilt, and restored multiple times. The castle was sold as national property in 1796 following the French Revolution.

Originally, Grangent Castle was not on an island. It was built on a rocky promontory about 50 meters above the wild Loire River. That changed in the 1950s when the construction of the Grangent dam created the reservoir and isolated the castle on its present island. Before, a late-19th-century railroad also ran beneath it.

The castle features an elongated layout with a slim, round keep. A chapel dedicated to Notre-Dame-de-Grâce is situated below it.

Today, the castle and island of Grangent are private property and not accessible to the public. They can easily be seen from public roads on the right bank of the reservoir and from Essalois Castle, which stands above it on the left bank. A charming little castle. It must be great to live there.

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