Hauts LieuxChapels, sanctuaries & legends

Hauts Lieux›All places›Haute-Garonne

Bastide (planned town)Haute-Garonne

Bastide de Calmont

Calmont

Dimensions
The chequerboard lanes of the bastide, among them the rue Neuve des Tourelles, one of the oldest streets in the village. The fortified house known as the old castle, with its two 14th-century towers on the bank of the Hers, inscribed in 1927. The church of Saint-Sernin, rebuilt in 1685-1691 in southern Gothic style, with a classified 17th-century painting of St Margaret. The Protestant temple of 1846, inscribed in 2015, and the great covered market hall of the 19th century.
Period
Keep of the counts of Foix about 1200, bastide of 1263 (1267 according to the Liste de bastides), royal in 1271; fire of 1625; church rebuilt in 1685-1691; temple of 1846.
What stands there
The fortified house has been inscribed as a monument historique since 1927, the Protestant temple since 2015 and the estate of Terraqueuse since 1996; the painting of St Margaret has been classified since 1914. Calmont is one of the few bastides of the Lauragais to have been a Protestant stronghold.

Calmont, the bald mount, Calvomonte as early as 1202, commands a ford on the Hers between the Lauragais and the county of Foix. The Count of Foix Roger IV had raised a keep there at the beginning of the 13th century; in 1263 Alphonse of Poitiers, Count of Toulouse, founded a bastide at the foot of the fortress, dispossessing the house of Foix, and the town passed under royal control in 1271. Its chequerboard lanes, among them the rue Neuve des Tourelles, still bear witness to this medieval plan. A Protestant stronghold in the 16th century under the authority of Jeanne d'Albret, Calmont was burnt by the royal troops of Marshal de Thémines on 20 August 1625: ramparts, church, temple and bridge disappeared. The church of Saint-Sernin was rebuilt in southern Gothic style between 1685 and 1691, a new temple opened in 1846, and the fortified house with its two 14th-century towers, on the bank of the Hers, recalls the vanished castle. The great 19th-century market hall still holds the life of the village.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the village, to the market hall and to the banks of the Hers. No market times 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 Calmont
Jack ma · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

In the same department

All places — Haute-Garonne (42).