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Bastide (planned town)Haute-Garonne

Bastide de Carbonne

Carbonne

Dimensions
The church of Saint-Laurent, founded in the 14th century, with its bell-gable and its tower inherited from the first bastide, its Baroque choir, its gilded wooden altarpiece and its Daublaine-Callinet organ of 1843; the two merchants' market halls, including that of 1882 designed by Pierre Esquié; the dovecote of Le Grilhon (end of the 16th-beginning of the 17th century); Saget's stone bridge (1765-1780), which brought down the gates of the ramparts; the mill of Ferrery of 1827 on the Arize.
Period
Monastic village of the 12th century, first bastide in 1256, ruined in 1355-1356 and rebuilt further north with ramparts; stone bridge 1765-1780; market hall of 1882.
What stands there
The church of Saint-Laurent has been inscribed as a monument historique since 1965 and the dovecote of Le Grilhon since 2009. The Mancies dam, the first dam on the Garonne upstream of Toulouse, holds back eight million cubic metres. Two merchants' market halls survive in the town.

Carbonne, in the Volvestre, is a bastide born twice. The oldest document, of 1145, records the gift of land by the Baron of Tersac to the abbey of Bonnefont; the monks cleared the ground and a village formed in the peninsula drawn by a meander of the Garonne. In 1256 Alphonse of Poitiers built a first bastide there, of which the bell-gable and the tower adjoining the church of Saint-Laurent survive. The passage of the Black Prince, in 1355-1356, left nothing of the town; the monks of Bonnefont rebuilt it further north, girdled with ramparts, and this second bastide came through the plague before prospering. The gates fell in 1780 to make way for the stone bridge built by Joseph-Marie de Saget. Today one visits the church of Saint-Laurent with its Baroque choir and its organ of 1843, the two market halls including that of Pierre Esquié in 1882, the dovecote of Le Grilhon and the mill of Ferrery on the Arize.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the village, to the market halls and to the banks of the Garonne. 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 Carbonne
Père Igor · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

In the same department

All places — Haute-Garonne (42).