Hauts LieuxChapels, sanctuaries & legends

Hauts Lieux›All places›Dordogne

Bastide (planned town)Dordogne

Beaumont-du-Périgord

Beaumontois en Périgord

Dimensions
The H-shaped plan of the bastide, 338 metres long by 137, can still be read in the rue Foussal and the rue Romieu, which lead off the central square surrounded by the arcades known as cornières. The church of Saint-Laurent-et-Saint-Front, classified in 1909, raises its four corner towers and its machicolations above the roofs. The porte de Luzier, the only surviving gate, together with traces of walls and a tower, recall the enclosure of 1320. The covered market hall disappeared in 1864.
Period
English bastide founded in 1272; enclosure around 1320, fortress-church around 1330-1350; ramparts demolished in the 18th century, covered market hall destroyed in 1864.
What stands there
Church of Saint-Laurent-et-Saint-Front listed as a monument historique (classified) in 1909, porte de Luzier inscribed in 1952, château de Bannes classified in 2002. The census of 1365 credited Beaumont with 230 hearths, one of the most populous bastides of the Périgord. Since 2016, Beaumont-du-Périgord has been a delegated commune of Beaumontois en Périgord; it belongs to the Fédération des Bastides d'Aquitaine.

On a ridge of the Périgord pourpre, between Bergerac and Sarlat, Beaumont-du-Périgord is an English bastide founded in 1272 in the name of Edward I, king of England, by his seneschal of Guyenne Lucas de Thaney, on lands ceded by the prior of Saint-Avit-Sénieur, the abbot of Cadouin and the lord of Biron. The king granted it a charter on 15 November 1286 and authorised a covered market hall in 1289. The town has kept its H-shaped plan, its central square lined with arcaded corners, its porte de Luzier, the last remnant of the enclosure raised around 1320, and above all its church of Saint-Laurent-et-Saint-Front, a true fortress-church with four corner towers begun around 1330-1350. Taken by the Huguenots in the 16th century, stripped of its ramparts in the 18th, the town preserves the silhouette of a stronghold of the Anglo-French marches.

Further reading

Getting there : Village freely accessible. Weekly markets on Tuesday and Saturday, night market on Monday evenings, according to the Fédération des Bastides d'Aquitaine.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

See it on the map OpenStreetMap Directions

Ambient sound

Beaumont-du-Périgord
Beaumont-en-perigord.jpg: Pays du Grand Bergeracois derivative work: Archibald T · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

This place in the great stories

In the same department

All places — Dordogne (80).