Hauts LieuxChapels, sanctuaries & legends

Hauts Lieux›All places›Hautes-Pyrénées

Bastide (planned town)Hautes-Pyrénées

Montgaillard

Montgaillard

Dimensions
The church of Saint-Hilaire of the 19th century on its rise, on the site of a feudal motte, with rich furnishings; the Devil's Bridge over the Adour; the fountain and the monument on the square; five wash-houses, among them that of the Adour from which the bridge can be seen; a shoeing frame, a former weighbridge and monumental crosses in the streets; the orientation table of las Puyolles. No bastide plan, square with covered arcades or market hall is described.
Period
Roman oppidum on the mount; bastide founded in 1327; church rebuilt in 1848 on the motte.
What stands there
A bastide founded in 1327 according to Wikipedia, of which no legible documented plan survives. The Devil's Bridge has withstood every flood of the Adour, including that of 1875 which carried away all the other bridges from Bagnères to Maubourguet.

Between Tarbes and Bagnères-de-Bigorre, on the bank of the Adour, Montgaillard takes its name from the mound that overlooks the village to the west, the "mont gaillard", the strong and valiant mount in Gascon, where the Romans had established the oppidum of eras Puyolas. Wikipedia indicates that Montgaillard is a bastide founded in 1327, without naming its founder: it is one of the very last foundations of the Bigorre before the Hundred Years' War. Today's village is above all a village of water, with its fountain on the square and five wash-houses, and a village of legend, with the old bridge known as the Devil's Bridge over the Adour, so ancient that no one knows who built it and that it was attributed to the cagots, those outcasts expert in carpentry whose skill could only come from the devil. The church of Saint-Hilaire, built in 1848 on a former feudal motte, overlooks the town like an old castle.

Further reading

Getting there : Village freely accessible; the Devil's Bridge and the wash-houses can be reached on foot.

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

Montgaillard
Florent Pécassou · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

In the same department

All places — Hautes-Pyrénées (17).