Dolan Castle in the Tarn river Canyon
On the road from Saint-Rome-de-Dolan to Les Vignes, on a platform overlooking the Tarn river between two ravines, are the ruins of Dolan’s castle. Mentioned in the 11th century as a fief of the Sévérac family in Rouergue, it will be given in homage to the bishop of Mende in the late 13th century.
During the reign of Henri IV, the Baroness of Dolan, Mme de Castelnau, widow of Louis of Arpajon, lord of the Château de Sévérac, rarely came to Dolan. Secretly neo-Protestant, she invited 14 priests from the neighborhood one evening. After the meal, she led them to the terrace of the castle: "to apostatize or to die" she said to x poor unhappy people, who chose death. The only son of Madame de Castelnau will later build an expiatory chapel at the scene of the tragedy, of which only the foundations remain today. A small iron cross still testifies this fateful day.
The castle was the victim of a fire. It seems that it was the residents, exasperated by the yoke that their masters imposed on them, decided, one day that they were absent, to burn it.
Careful, the surroundings of the castle are not secured, its visit is therefore prohibited.
