Madame Sherri stairs

The uppermost arch in the iconic stairway at Madam Sherri’s Forest in Chesterfield, seen here in a photo from several years ago, collapsed over the weekend.

Madame Sherri stairs

 File photo

The back end of the stairs at the site of Madame Sherri’s Castle in West Chesterfield crumbled over the weekend.

Jack Savage, with the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, which owns the site, said the reason for the crumbling could have been a combination of heavy rains shifting the ground, and a weakened structure from years of exposure.