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Bastide (planned town)Haute-Garonne

Bastide de Revel

Revel

Dimensions
The chequerboard of the bastide is set within the tour de ville, the planted boulevards that have replaced the ramparts and their four gates, Notre-Dame, Saint-Antoine, de Castres and de Sorèze. The central square is surrounded by garlandes, the galleries provided for in the charter, and by manor houses of the 17th and 18th centuries. The oak market hall of the 14th century carries a neoclassical belfry of 1834. The church of Notre-Dame-des-Grâces, rebuilt in 1736, received its bell-tower from 1845 to 1850.
Period
14th century (foundation 1342, wall 1355); Huguenot stronghold dismantled in 1629; ditches filled in in 1779; belfry of 1834.
What stands there
The market hall has been classified as a monument historique since 2006; the dam of Saint-Ferréol, inscribed in 1997, was for more than two centuries the largest in Europe. The Saturday market is among the hundred finest markets in France. Revel numbered 9,686 inhabitants in 2022.

At the foot of the Montagne Noire, Revel is one of the last bastides of the Midi and one of the best preserved. Founded in 1342 by Philip VI of Valois under the name Bastide de Lavaur, on the forests of Vauré and Dreuilhe, it received a charter of eighty-nine articles and a consulate of six burgesses. Its central square, lined with galleries called garlandes, surrounds a 14th-century market hall carried on seventy-nine oak posts and crowned by a belfry of 1834. Enriched by woad, disputed between Catholics and Protestants, Revel owed to Pierre-Paul Riquet, who lent it money, the basin of Saint-Ferréol dug from 1667 to 1680 to feed the Canal du Midi. The Saturday market, more than six hundred years old, is among the hundred finest markets in France.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the bastide. Market on Saturday morning under the market hall and on the square. The lake of Saint-Ferréol is a few kilometres away.

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

Nearby

In the same department

All places — Haute-Garonne (42).