Château de Charry

Castle in Montcuq in the Lot département of France

The Château de Charry is a castle, originally 15th century, in the commune of Montcuq in the Lot département of France.^[1]

The castle was built in three stages. It was initially a keep whose principal masonry was flanked by two polygonal towers. It was encircled by a fortified curtain wall; the remains of this are the third tower, though not connected to the main building, and a rectangular barbican. Cannon positions defended access to the well. An underground passage linked the barbican to one of the towers of the keep.^[1]

In the 17th century, a second period of building added the central building to the right of the tower and buildings forming the court.^[1]

In the 19th century, the main building was joined to the round tower of the ramparts. This keep provided a firing line between Montcuq and the keep at Marcilhac, and guaranteed the defence of the Charry valley.^[1]

The castle is privately owned. It has been listed since 1976 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.^[1]

David Garnett, the British writer and publisher and a prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group, moved to France and lived in a house in the grounds of the Château de Charry after his separation from his wife, Angelica.^[2] He died there in 1981.^[3]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Base Mérimée: Château de Charry, Ministère français de la Culture. (in French)
^ Sarah Knights, Bloomsbury's Outsider: A Life of David Garnett, Bloomsbury Reader, 2015; page 509. ISBN 978-1-4482-1545-4, 632 pages.
^ Frances Partridge, ‘Garnett, David (1892–1981)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2016. Accessed 10 May 2016