CASCASTEL CHATEAU

A Church & a Château

Photograph from the beginning of the 20^th century.

Cascastel Castle - The Berre bridge Coll. A Villa

The Church and the Keep have dominated the River Berre since the beginning of the 12^th century.
The Abbots of Lagrasse no longer appear as the “co-seigneurs” of Cascastel. The important part of the “Seigneurie”, which included Villeneuve (a “bastide”) and Roffian, is in the hands of the family of Castel and Cascastel.

The photograph clearly shows the existence of a wall between the Château and the Church which was outside the fortifications. There are other examples of Church buildings being outside the fortified walls during this Medieval period. Montpellier is another example.
 
The ownership of the Church at Cascastel was claimed by the Abbey at Lagrasse to confirm fraudulent acts.
 
This same photograph shows the church tower as it was before 1911 the year when a Romanesque window and the roof were replaced by a metal portico. What is clearly seen is the Presbytery and on the left of it a much older lean-to building against the Church.
 
The building in the middle ground and immediately adjacent to the road, was the old “Ecole des Sœurs” (the Nuns’ school) These buildings and the gardens constituted an enclosure outside the walls of the village and which could have been the seat of the Seigneurie of the Abbey at Lagrasse.