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Bastide (planned town)Gers

Bastide de Cologne

Cologne

Dimensions
A grid plan with two perpendicular axes and nine blocks, the square at the centre. On the square, the 14th-century market hall rests on stone piers at the angles and wooden ones elsewhere, beneath a small pepper-pot belfry; there one sees 15th-century grain measures cut in stone. The covered arcades on the north and south sides are of timber framing and herringbone brickwork on wooden posts. The church keeps part of its 14th-century façade, a Louis XVI altar and a gilded wooden pietà of the 17th century.
Period
Bastide founded in 1284, customs of 1286; 14th-century market hall; bell of 1607; covered arcades restored.
What stands there
Market hall and presbytery inscribed as monuments historiques in 1944; church listed in the Mérimée database. The stone grain measures of the market hall are a very rare example. The square is considered one of the finest in the Gers.

In the east of the Gers, at the gates of the Lomagne, Cologne is one of the best-preserved bastides of Gascony. Founded in 1284 by the seneschal of Toulouse Eustache de Beaumarchais, in paréage with Otton, Viscount of Terride, it borrowed the name of the great Rhineland city as a pledge of prosperity. Its plan, characteristic of the royal bastides of the plain, is laid out along two perpendicular axes in nine square or rectangular blocks, the square occupying the centre. This square, held to be one of the finest in the Gers, is lined with covered arcades of timber framing and herringbone brickwork, and its 14th-century market hall, topped by a small pepper-pot belfry, houses a bell of 1607 and rare 15th-century grain measures cut in stone. The church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption keeps remains of the 14th century.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the square, to the covered arcades and to the market hall. A tourist information office is reported in the former presbytery; opening times not documented. No 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 Cologne
Traumrune · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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In the same department

All places — Gers (34).