Description
In Rossillon, the area’s heritage reveals itself to those who know how to look. Behind the walls, beneath the vegetation, or around a bend in the path, faint traces still tell the story of a village once marked by the presence of a fortified castle and mills.
Built around 1260 by Boniface of Savoy, the fortified castle of Rossillon was, among others, owned by the de La Forest family. As it gradually became less comfortable, it was abandoned in favor of a manor house built at the entrance to the village. Today, its ruins have almost vanished, giving way to speculation and legends: could a mysterious gaping hole be the entrance to ancient dungeons, an underground passage, or a cistern?
The village also preserves the memory of its former artisanal activities. The mill immortalized by the painter Victor Ducrot at the Lyon Salon in 1897 no longer exists today: only a few remnants of the intake canal bear witness to its existence. The same is true of the Saunier family’s sawmill, whose plans still appear on the Napoleonic cadastral map of 1833.
On a tour of Rossillon, come discover this fragile heritage—sometimes threatened with disappearance—and set out in search of the visible and invisible traces that remain in the landscape. For while the stones may fade away, the stories can live on.
