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Bastide (planned town)Gironde

Bastide de Cadillac

Cadillac-sur-Garonne

Dimensions
The medieval enclosure survives over a good part of its course, with the porte de la Mer to the south and the porte de l'Horloge to the east. On the place de la République, the heart of the bastide, the town hall houses a covered market hall on the ground floor. The church of Saint-Martin, of the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century, is flanked by the funerary chapel of the dukes of Épernon. The château, with its fortified glacis, its painted ceilings and its marble fireplaces, dominates the former walls.
Period
Bastide founded in 1280; enclosure 1315-1366; church of Saint-Martin end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th century; château of the dukes of Épernon built from the second half of the 16th century; hospital of La Charité 1617.
What stands there
Château and ramparts classified as monuments historiques since 1862, church of Saint-Martin classified in 2002, gate of the dukes' kitchen garden inscribed in 1965. The château, a women's prison in the 19th century and until 1953, is today managed by the Centre des monuments nationaux. The commune is a member of the Fédération des Bastides d'Aquitaine.

On the right bank of the Garonne, thirty-four kilometres south-east of Bordeaux, Cadillac is an English bastide founded in 1280 by Jean I de Grailly, Viscount of Benauges and seneschal of Guyenne, on the site of the village of Saint-Jean. A river port by which the wines of the Entre-deux-Mers went down to Bordeaux, the town was not fortified until 1315; the enclosure and its gates were completed about 1366 and made it a stronghold essential to the defence of the capital of Guyenne. Its singularity lies in the château that the Duke of Épernon, favourite of Henry III, had built in place of the medieval fortress: a classical palace with monumental fireplaces which occupies a third of the area of the bastide. Ramparts, the porte de la Mer and the porte de l'Horloge, the church of Saint-Martin and the town hall and market hall on the central square make up a rare ensemble.

Further reading

Getting there : Village, ramparts and square freely accessible; the château can be visited (Centre des monuments nationaux). Market on Saturday morning. Tourist office of Cadillac and Podensac.

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 Cadillac
Henry Salomé · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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In the same department

All places — Gironde (23).