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Bastide (planned town)Dordogne

Bastide de Beauregard

Beauregard-et-Bassac

Dimensions
The streets and plots of the bastide still form a square of about 180 metres a side around the square. The covered market hall of the 13th century, whose roof frame carries beams measuring up to 15 metres, has kept its grain measures; a mission cross stands beside it. The church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption is Gothic in style. At Bassac, the Romanesque chapel of Notre-Dame keeps a porch of the 12th century and a Gothic chancel.
Period
English bastide founded in 1286; covered market hall of the 13th century; passage to the French in 1346; merger with Bassac at the Revolution.
What stands there
The dolmen of the Pierre Levée, in the commune, has been listed as a monument historique (classified) since 1940. The château de Beauregard, a former fief of the Talleyrand and the d'Abzac families, has disappeared; a 16th-century manor may have replaced it on its foundations. The commune, which has some 255 inhabitants according to the Fédération des Bastides d'Aquitaine, belongs to it.

On a hillside overlooking the valley of the Crempse, some twenty kilometres north-east of Bergerac, Beauregard is an English bastide founded in 1286 for Edward I; the Fédération des Bastides d'Aquitaine attributes its creation to the seneschal Jean de Grailly. Its name, Belregard, attested in 1289, means "fine outlook". The new town had an important jurisdiction, extended to the castles of Clermont, Montclar, Vern, Roussille, Estissac and Longa and to a dozen parishes, before passing into French hands in 1346. There survive a layout of streets and plots forming a square of about 180 to 200 metres a side, a covered market hall of the 13th century with monumental roof timbers and the Gothic church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption. At the Revolution, Beauregard merged with Bassac, whose Romanesque church goes back to about the year 1000.

Further reading

Getting there : Village and market hall freely accessible. No regular market is documented.

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

Bastide de Beauregard
Père Igor · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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In the same department

All places — Dordogne (80).