-
- Search
The Pentagonal Tower dates back to 1359. It forms part of the ramparts that have protected the town of Castellane since the Middle Ages. At the foot of the Tower, the Jardins de la Tour site offers a magnificent view of the village, the Roc and the Verdon valley.
The interior of the Tower is not open to the public.
Castellane’s fortifications are traditionally dated to 1359 and subsequent years. While the Tour Pentagonale may date back to the second half of the 14th century, it is not possible to say when the transformations, particularly to the machicolation and the gorge, took place. The tower was listed as a historic monument in 1921.
The pentagonal tower is the most imposing in the city’s fortification system. It is also the best preserved and the tallest, since although it is not the tallest (it is just under 20 m high), it is nevertheless built at the highest point of the ramparts. It has a pentagonal plan, but an irregular pentagon, and five storeys. It is a tower with an open throat, although the interior elevation has been largely walled in over the centuries. Its masonry is composed of small, irregular courses of squared limestone rubble.
The ashlar quoins are mostly tufa stone. On the fourth floor, the chains are made of large, rusticated ashlar. This level is also crowned by a machicolation, of which only the four-quarter-round projecting brackets remain. The machicolation itself has been replaced by a second storey with a gambrel roof and hollow tiles. Traces of two archways can still be seen in the masonry of the tower. The first under the machicolation brackets on the northeast elevation, and the second on the 2nd floor of the west elevation.
See https://dossiersinventaire.maregionsud.fr/dossier/ouvrage-fortifie-dit-tour-pentagonale/791ec606-dacf-481a-9f1b-c065000c0ca7
Place Marcel Sauvaire
04120 Castellane-en