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Bastide (planned town)Gironde

Bastide de Sainte-Foy-la-Grande

Sainte-Foy-la-Grande

Dimensions
The place Gambetta, the former parade square of sixty-five metres on each side, is lined with arcades eighty metres from the bank. The chequerboard streets line up timber-framed houses of the end of the 16th century and stone residences of the 13th and 14th centuries, among them the house known as the house of the Templars with its square tower, built between 1280 and 1310. Remains of the ramparts survive, the church of Notre-Dame dates from the 17th century, enlarged in 1850, and the market hall of 1853 has twenty stone columns.
Period
Bastide founded in 1255, customs 1256; fortification authorised in 1326; English from 1377 to 1450; church destroyed in 1561, temple 1587-1683, church rebuilt in 1686; market hall 1853.
What stands there
The tour du Temple, of the 13th and 14th centuries, inscribed as a monument historique in 1967; four houses in the rue de la République inscribed in 1955. The market is among the hundred Marchés d'exception de France according to the Fédération des Bastides d'Aquitaine. The commune is a member of the Fédération; it is the heart of the Sainte-Foy-Bordeaux appellation and a stage on the via Lemovicensis towards Compostela.

On the left bank of the Dordogne, on the border of the Périgord and the Agenais, Sainte-Foy-la-Grande was founded in 1255 by Alphonse of Poitiers, brother of St Louis, on an almost virgin territory ceded by Bernard de Saint-Astier; as early as 1256 the count granted a charter of customs to the inhabitants. A French stronghold facing the English lands, authorised to fortify itself in 1326, the bastide fell in 1377 into the hands of the Plantagenets and became French again only in 1450. The 16th century made it a Protestant bastion: the church was destroyed in 1561 and a temple inaugurated in 1587, before the forced return to Catholicism under Louis XIV. Its chequerboard plan, its arcaded square, its timber-framed houses and its tour du Temple make it one of the most legible bastides in the valley; the Protestant college opened in 1825 trained Paul Broca and the Reclus brothers.

Further reading

Getting there : Village freely accessible. Tourist office at 102 rue de la République; museum of the Pays foyen. Market under the hall and on the square, day not specified in the texts.

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

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In the same department

All places — Gironde (23).