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Bastide (planned town)Landes

Bastide de Pimbo

Pimbo

Dimensions
A street bastide drawn out along the ridge, with no square with covered arcades; the collegiate church of Saint-Barthélemy, of military aspect, with its doorway, Romanesque chevet, carvings in discs and grotesques, corbels and bell-gable; at the western end of the village, an enclosure twenty metres across, the bank of the former fortification; timber-framed houses filled with stone and cob.
Period
Collegiate church of the 12th century; bastide founded by paréage in 1268; destruction of 1569; rebuilding under Henry IV; suppression of the chapter at the Revolution.
What stands there
Pimbo is the oldest bastide of the Landes (1268) and a member of the Fédération des Bastides d'Aquitaine. The commune, of about two hundred inhabitants, lies on the via Podiensis, between Miramont-Sensacq and Arzacq-Arraziguet, and offers a reception for pilgrims.

Pimbo, whose Gascon name means "thyme", is perched on a narrow ridge of the Tursan, seventeen kilometres south-west of Aire-sur-l'Adour, on the via Podiensis of the road to Compostela. It is the oldest bastide of the Landes: its paréage contract, signed in 1268 between the abbot Arnaud de Sanguinet, five canons of the collegiate church and Thomas d'Ypergrave, seneschal of Gascony in the name of the king-duke Henry III, provided for a new population and a fortified house surrounded by a ditch. For want of room on the ridge, the town took the form of a street bastide, with no central square apart from the parvis of the church. The collegiate church of Saint-Barthélemy, earlier than the bastide, keeps its defensive bearing, its Romanesque carvings and its bell-gable; to the west, a circular bank marks the former fortification.

Further reading

Getting there : Town freely accessible. A reception for pilgrims is reported by the federation between April and October; no market or tourist office documented on the spot.

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 Pimbo
Jibi44 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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In the same department

All places — Landes (27).