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Bastide de Hontanx

Hontanx

Dimensions
The bastide takes the form of a street village once protected by ditches and a fortified gate. This gate, become a belfry, still stands: a vaulted passage on the ground floor, upper storeys pierced with square arrow slits, machicolations, a wooden hoarding and a wall-walk; it serves as the bell-tower of the neo-Romanesque church of 1870. Beside it, the château d'Aon, a fortified house on a motte of the 13th century, and, on the edge of the Grand Étang, the dyke, the mill and a bridge of the 15th century.
Period
Parish mentioned in 1108 and 1273-1274; castrum in 1279; fortified house of Aon in 1298; bastide in 1331; bridge of the 15th century; church rebuilt in 1870.
What stands there
The belfry of Hontanx is presented by the tourist office of the Landes d'Armagnac as the former gate of the bastide founded in 1331 by the counts of Foix-Béarn-Marsan. The château d'Aon is a fortified house on a motte whose origins go back to the 13th century. No protection as a monument historique is documented in the texts.

Hontanx, whose name, from Fontanis, evokes the springs that abound round about, is a street bastide of the Marsan founded in 1331 by a paréage between the count of Foix, viscount of Marsan, and Fortaner de Lescun, lord of Fontans. The village stretches along the edge of a large pond, in the middle of the vineyards of the Bas-Armagnac, protected in former times by palisades, ditches and fortified gates. The most remarkable of these gates survives: a tower pierced with arrow slits, crowned with machicolations, a wooden hoarding and a wall-walk, it has served since 1870 as the bell-tower of the church of Saint-Martin rebuilt against it. Close by, the château d'Aon, a fortified house on a motte of the 13th century, recalls that the site was fortified well before the bastide. The Grand Étang, its dyke, its mill and its 15th-century bridge complete the making of Hontanx into an engaging stage in the Landes d'Armagnac.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the village, to the belfry and to the surroundings of the Grand Étang. The château d'Aon is a private property with its own website. No 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 Hontanx
Jibi44 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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In the same department

All places — Landes (27).