Butchers' Tower

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Butchers' Tower is one of the remains of the medieval town walls of Lauterbourg, a town in the former Bishopric of Speyer. According to the inventory, the earliest certain mention of the settlement dates from 1252. The upper town is attested as fortified in 1272, while the lower town to the east was fortified later, probably in the 15th century. At the beginning of the 18th century, Louis XIV made Lauterbourg a fortress town: the eastern and western walls were replaced by an earthen bastioned rampart, while the medieval walls to the north and south were kept and modified. The Butchers' Tower, which has two storeys and is decorated with friezes of arcading, survives together with sections of curtain wall to the south, the enclosure of the fortified castle, the Gloriette tower (remodelled in 1852) and the Landau Gate in pink sandstone, decorated with a sun in honour of Louis XIV. The Middle Gate, destroyed during the Second World War, once completed the defences. The tower has been listed as a Monument historique since 18 November 1993.