Major defence feature of the fortified square
The architecture indicates it dates back to the 12th century. The roof was added in the 18th century to protect from bad weather. The primitive cube-shaped keep was originally made from wood, but was replaced by a stone keep in the 12th century. The original rear door is high off the ground which was two metres lower at the time. The main door was created in the 19th century by the farmer opposite who used it to store his equipment. On the ground floor: a 19th-century bread oven and a trap door used to lower sacks of food and limestone, the local tuffeau from the Chauvigny area.
The stairway is part of the original construction. It is voluntarily narrow to slow enemy's entering.
The room of echoes
On the first floor, the room of echoes was used for lepers to confess. Leprosy is passed on by saliva so the patients had to confess quietly, standing back to back, in opposite corners of the room. The architecture of this room has particularly good acoustics.
The openings still visible on the ground floor and first floor were added during the French Revolution by a farmer, the last owner of the keep, for entering his harvest. Inside, a stairway built in the wall leads to the first floor to a vaulted room called the "salle des echos", the room of echoes. A second stairway, also built in the wall, leads from the second floor to the upper floors and terrace overlooking the vast landscape.