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Bastide (planned town)Aveyron

Villeneuve-d'Aveyron

Villeneuve

Dimensions
The church of the Holy Sepulchre, Romanesque of the 11th century in the form of a Greek cross, whose eastern apse was demolished in 1249 for a nave of southern Gothic, classified in 1925; the place des Conques, the central square of the bastide, with its arcades and its 14th-century houses; the three-storeyed Porte haute closed by two portcullises; the gate-tower of Cardalhac, known as the tour Savignac, a remnant of the 14th-century fortifications.
Period
Monastery and sauveté around 1053; comital bastide in 1231; Gothic nave from 1249; fortifications of the 14th century.
What stands there
Nine buildings protected as monuments historiques, among them the church of the Holy Sepulchre classified in 1925. The first bastide of Rouergue, one of the five in the department with Najac, Villefranche, Sauveterre and La Bastide-l'Évêque.

On the causse, north of Villefranche-de-Rouergue, Villeneuve is the first bastide of Rouergue. It all began in the middle of the 11th century: Pierre Bérenger, bishop of Rodez, founded a monastery there in honour of the Holy Sepulchre, following the pilgrimage of Ozile de Morlhon to the Holy Places, and the sauveté that grew around it drew a market instituted by the bishop. In 1231 Raymond VII, count of Toulouse and of Rouergue, took back control of the fief after an exchange and grafted a comital bastide on to the monastery. The founding of Villefranche, which became the seat of the seneschalsy, then dealt it a fatal blow, but the town, fortified in the 14th century, keeps from that time the three-storeyed Porte haute closed by two portcullises and the gate-tower of Cardalhac. The Romanesque church of the Holy Sepulchre and the arcaded place des Conques make it one of the five bastides of the department.

Further reading

Getting there : Village with free access; medieval fête with a costumed procession on the last Sunday of July. No tourist office or weekly 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

Villeneuve-d'Aveyron
Krzysztof Golik · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

This place in the great stories

In the same department

All places — Aveyron (20).