The existence of a castle in Saint-Chef was assured in 1197: on this date, Abbot Hugues Borrel, with the consent of his chapter, granted the inhabitants of the castle relief from certain taxes on burials. At an altitude of 353 meters, the site of the old castle appears like a narrow promontory, clearly dominating the abbey town. The topography of the place, like the name later given to this residential area (castle farmhouse), allows us to imagine that the houses of a castle town were crowded into this space. The tower itself is located on the edge of a vast oval terrace, overlooking a second terrace or lower courtyard, placed to the north. Square in plan, it appears as a homogeneous, extremely massive construction. The thickness of the walls on the ground floor (240 cm) imposed by the thrust of the vaults, reduces the living space to less than half of the built surface. The facing preserved in the upper parts and inside is neat: it is made up of small rubble stones of molasses and limestone, well squared and arranged in regular courses. At the corners of the building, beautiful blocks of the same gray-green molasses, carefully harped.
Source: Châteaux de France