Château de Murol en Saint Amant, Medieval fortress in Saint-Amant-Tallende, France

Château de Murol en Saint Amant stands above the Monne, south of Saint-Amant-Tallende. Its three wings enclose a courtyard: the fortified Romanesque church to the north, a logis with pepper-roofed corner towers to the east, and a logis with a bartizan to the south. The 19th-century roof closes the wall-walk, and a three-level stone gallery opens onto the courtyard.

The fortress of Murol appears in archives in the 13th century. In 1347 it entered the Murol family through the marriage of Randonne de Panhac and Amblard de Murol. Annet Bouchard bought and restored it in 1629; in 1735 it passed to the Cousin de La Tour Fondue family. From 1875, Anatole de la Tour Fondue had architect Louis-Clémentin Bruyère, a pupil of Viollet-le-Duc, rebuild it in a neo-medieval style; ruined, he went into exile in Canada in 1908. His daughters sold it in 1921 to René and Edmond Giscard.

The castle is often called Château de La Tour Fondue, after the family that acquired it through Gabrielle Bouchard's 1735 marriage to Claude de Cousin. Its chapel, of which only the Romanesque choir survives, served as the parish church until the 19th century; five layers of wall decoration from the 12th to the 18th century are visible there.

The castle stands south of Saint-Amant-Tallende, above the Monne, 15 km from Clermont-Ferrand. It is reached from the village below; do not confuse it with the older castle of Saint-Amant higher up, once home to Queen Margot. The terraced gardens are linked to the castle by a footbridge.

The chapel, reduced to its choir, served as the parish church until the 19th century; a wide ditch was dug around it and a fake romantic grotto laid out beside it. Restoration of its walls from March 1989 to December 1990, led by architect Antoine Armynot du Châtelet, uncovered frescoes executed by Yves Morvan, with five decorative layers from the 12th, 14th, 15th and 18th centuries.