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Bastide (planned town)Tarn

Bastide de Castelnau-de-Montmiral

Castelnau-de-Montmiral

Dimensions
The place des Arcades lined with covered arcades, with its pillory; the fortified gates of Les Garrics and of Toulze and remains of ramparts; houses of stone and half-timber, among them a house on the square dated 1630; the church of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, with its bell of 1554, which preserves the reliquary cross known as the cross of Montmiral, made in 1341 by a goldsmith of Albi and finished in Toulouse; underground refuges; the château du Guet, destroyed in 1819, survives only on the coat of arms.
Period
Bastide founded in 1222; customs confirmed in 1365; the château du Guet destroyed in 1819; church with a bell of 1554.
What stands there
Village listed among the Plus Beaux Villages de France. A commune of 8,881 hectares, one of the largest in the department, covered by two Natura 2000 sites of the forest of Grésigne and by the biological reserve of Montoulieu. Reliquary cross of 1341 kept in the church.

Perched on a height that served as a lookout post, this "new castle" of Mont miral was founded in 1222 by Raymond VII, count of Toulouse, who gave it the same franchises as Cordes and Gaillac, in the same year. Reunited with the royal domain in 1271, given in 1322 by Philip V to Arnaud de Trians, viscount of Tallard, then passing to the Armagnacs, the bastide saw Charles I of Armagnac die within its walls in 1497. Remaining Catholic during the Wars of Religion, it took in the Catholics driven out of Gaillac and in January 1587 repulsed the attack of the Protestant captain Bruniquel; Louis XIII slept there on 24 June 1622. The place des Arcades and its pillory, the gates of Les Garrics and of Toulze, the half-timbered houses and the reliquary cross of 1341 make Castelnau one of the finest villages in the Tarn, at the edge of the forest of Grésigne.

Further reading

Getting there : Free access to the village and to the place des Arcades; municipal tourist site; summer festivals (Musicales de Montmiral, CastelRoc). No market times are 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 Castelnau-de-Montmiral
Thérèse Gaigé · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

This place in the great stories

In the same department

All places — Tarn (23).