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Fougeres guards what used to be a frontier. For centuries the city sat on the eastern edge of Brittany, where the Breton forests met the Normand and Maine territories and the border needed defending. The Chateau de Fougeres, built and rebuilt between the 12th and 15th centuries, covers two hectares with thirteen towers still standing: it is one of the largest medieval fortresses in France and possibly the most complete, sitting in a natural defensive hollow below the upper town in a configuration that required attackers to assault uphill from every direction.

By the 20th century the city had traded its defensive role for a different kind of work.

Fougeres became the capital of French women's footwear manufacturing, with dozens of factories producing shoes that were exported across the world. The shoe industry employed most of the town for generations before collapsing after 1973 as cheaper imports arrived. The brick factory buildings remain, some converted and some awaiting purposes, giving the lower town near the river a layered industrial character that sits oddly alongside the medieval towers above. Victor Hugo visited, Balzac set a novel here, and the Tour de France has passed through multiple times. The pilgrim route towards Mont-Saint-Michel, 60 kilometres to the west, still brings walkers through who stop to look up at the towers.