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Bastide (planned town)Lot-et-Garonne

Bastide d'Aiguillon

Aiguillon

Dimensions
The town keeps the remains of a regular plan, a few timber-framed houses and traces of the ramparts, notably the wall of the Ravelin raised on the east in the 15th century. The château of the dukes of Aiguillon, of the 18th century, preceded by a square framed by the former outbuildings and the pavillon de la Comédie of 1780, houses a lycée. The Gallo-Roman cellars, the château de Lunac of the 12th century, the former Carmelite convent turned town hall and the funerary pillar of La Tourasse complete the visit.
Period
Gallo-Roman site; medieval settlements including Lunac; bastide endowed with customs in 1296; siege of 1346; duchy-peerage in 1599; ducal château and pavillon de la Comédie in the 18th century.
What stands there
A bastide belonging to the Fédération des Bastides d'Aquitaine. The church of Saint-Côme has been inscribed as a monument historique since 1925; the ducal château, a former tobacco warehouse, was restored in 1958 to become the lycée Stendhal. The Napoléon Ier bridge over the Garonne, decided upon during the emperor's visit in 1808, was built between 1813 and 1827.

Aiguillon occupies a spur at the confluence of the Lot and the Garonne, a position coveted since antiquity: three Gallo-Roman storehouses, the horrea, still sleep beneath the town. At the end of the 13th century several settlements shared the site, among them Lunac, important enough to possess a Carmelite convent and an enclosure. The king of France founded a bastide there, endowed with customs in January 1296, to calm the rivalries between lords and inhabitants. Having passed to the crown of England, the stronghold withstood in 1346 one of the most famous sieges of the Hundred Years' War. Raised to a duchy-peerage by Henri IV in 1599, Aiguillon was remodelled in the 18th century by the ducal château, which erased a great part of the medieval town. There remain a regular plan, timber-framed houses, remains of fortifications and the memory of a town that stood up to the army of a king's son.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the village. The château can be seen from outside, the square and the outbuildings being open; no opening times of a tourist office or of a market are documented in the texts.

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 d'Aiguillon
Gilles Guillamot · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

In the same department

All places — Lot-et-Garonne (34).