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Bastide (planned town)Lot-et-Garonne

Bastide de Damazan

Damazan

Dimensions
The square place with cornières, restored with its well and a fountain in 1998, forms the heart of the grid; the town hall, built about 1818 above the market hall, is reached by a staircase of the 14th century. A few houses keep their daub and timber framing. A corner tower and remains of ramparts can be seen on the boulevards. The church of Notre-Dame, of the 17th century, and the medieval fontaine des Anglais complete the ensemble.
Period
Bastide founded in 1259 by Alphonse of Poitiers; comital castle perhaps slightly later; church burned in 1585 and rebuilt at the beginning of the 17th century; fountain of 1731; town hall on the market hall about 1818; promenades of 1863.
What stands there
A bastide belonging to the Fédération des Bastides d'Aquitaine. The church of Notre-Dame is recorded in the Inventaire général du patrimoine culturel. The comital castle, which became a tobacco warehouse in 1832, was partly destroyed by fire in 1989. Under the Convention the commune was called Damazan-le-Républicain.

Between Bordeaux and Agen, a step away from Aiguillon and from the canal latéral à la Garonne, Damazan is one of the most legible bastides of the Lot-et-Garonne. Founded in 1259 by Alphonse of Poitiers under the name of Castrum comitale, the castrum of the count, it spreads out a regular grid set within a rectangle of 220 metres by 260, around a square some forty metres on each side. The houses with cornières that border it sometimes keep their walls of daub and timber framing; at the centre, the market hall has carried since 1818 the town hall, reached by a staircase of the 14th century. A wall with four gates encircled the town, of which a corner tower survives, and a castle called comital, the residence of the military governor, is set within the built fabric. English and French by turns, burned by the Protestants in 1585, Damazan has kept its fontaine des Anglais.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the village. Mooring point on the canal latéral à la Garonne; no tourist office or market 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 de Damazan
Maarten Sepp · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

In the same department

All places — Lot-et-Garonne (34).