A 15th-century fortress hidden in the Lanmary forest, near Périgueux in the Dordogne. Closed to the public for decades, it has reopened — not restored, but in the middle of its restoration.
Visit
Visiting the Château de Caussade
Père Igor, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What you will see
A fortress with no round towers: the walls meet in a polygon, at sharp angles, which is rare in the Périgord. Four corner towers, a band of machicolations, a moat and a drawbridge — and a gatehouse tower twenty-four metres high.
Inside, the surprise. Behind these walls of war the rooms have kept their rammed-earth floors, their roof timbers and their old stained glass, on a scale that remains domestic rather than palatial.
The castle has been listed as a monument historique since 17 August 1945.
The visit
Roughly 1 hour 15, half of it indoors, led by a knight-minstrel who follows the thread of Dante's Divine Comedy — from the Gate of Hell to Purgatory.
The thread is not arbitrary. The troubadour Bertran de Born, whom Dante condemned to carry his own severed head like a lantern, married Himberge de Caussade and gave these walls their place in the poem.
The route changes from one day to the next, depending on where the builders are working.
A castle being brought back
Bought in January 2026 by François Dumy, who calls himself its ferryman rather than its owner, Caussade is being made watertight before anything else. Then comes the great task: rebuilding the twelve-metre curtain wall that collapsed in 1994 — some 300 cubic metres of masonry, to be raised the old way, on the model of the experimental building site at Guédelon.
The castle opened during the work, not after. Every visit both funds the restoration and tells its story.
Getting here
12 chemin du château de Caussade, 24750 Trélissac — coordinates N 45.232 · E 0.805, more reliable than the street name on most navigation apps.
Free public car park on the route de la Croix du Rat, 24420 Antonne, then about 700 metres on foot along the white forest track that starts opposite. Do not park on the forest tracks: they must stay clear for site vehicles.
Three long-distance footpaths cross the Lanmary forest — GR 36, GR 646 and GR 654, the Vézelay route to Santiago de Compostela. If you are walking one of them, the castle is a short detour away.
Good to know
- Guided visits onlyIn groups of fewer than 20 people, for safety reasons — the castle is a working building site, not a fitted-out monument. Guides speak French and English.
- BookingBy telephone only. Places are limited, so please call ahead.
- AccessibilityThe site is not accessible to pushchairs or wheelchairs. The route crosses uneven ground and narrow passages. There are no toilets on site yet.
- DogsWelcome. On a lead outdoors, carried inside the castle.
- What to wearClosed shoes. Half the visit is outdoors, on a building site.