Baraing Castle

Driving along the motorway at Pont-Saint-Martin, you notice a castle with pointed turrets on the hill above the town centre. It looks medieval, but it is not. Baraing Castle dates from the end of the 19th century. It owes nothing to a feudal lord: it was built by a doctor.

Doctor Baraing

Pierre-Annibal Baraing was born in 1827 at Perloz, into a family of modest means. He became a doctor and devoted his life to caring for the people of the area. He was also a benefactor: among other things, he paid for a nursery school in Pont-Saint-Martin. After his marriage to Delfina Bianco, he had this castle built. Work went on from 1883 to the early 1890s. He died in 1894, shortly after it was finished.

A dream of the Middle Ages

The castle is a good example of the Gothic Revival taste of the period. The plan forms a quadrilateral, and the façade bristles with decorative turrets. Nothing here was built for war: it is a middle-class house dressed up as a castle. According to local tradition, the doctor wanted his home to be a kind of heir to the old castle of Pont-Saint-Martin, higher up the hill, but at the service of the townspeople.

From town hall to offices

In 1931, his widow gave the castle to the municipality. It served as the town hall of Pont-Saint-Martin until the Second World War. After the war, it housed a vocational school until the early 1960s. Then it stood empty for years. Restored, it has been the headquarters since 2002 of the Unité des Communes valdôtaines Mont-Rose, the union of municipalities of the lower valley.

How to see it

Château Baraing
Via Perloz, 44
11026 Pont-Saint-Martin (AO)
+39 0125 807 873 · cm-montrose.vda.it

The castle houses offices and is not open to visitors. It can be seen from outside: a footpath climbs to it from the centre, and you can combine the walk with the nearby Roman bridge. By car, follow the signs for Perloz.