Chastimoine Tower

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Chastimoine Tower (or Châtimoine Tower) stood at the north-west corner of the city walls of Caen. It was built in 1458 by the master mason Jehan Erneys on the site of a tower or gate (perhaps the Porte Arthur) that Charles VII had had mined when he retook the city from the English in 1450. Some thirty metres high and four storeys tall, it was reduced to three storeys in 1522, its top being replaced by a parapeted platform. Its walls, about ten metres thick, were meant to withstand artillery. It served as a store for gunpowder and cannon (sixteen cast-iron pieces in an inventory of 1600) and contained a caretaker's lodging and a cell. Once decommissioned militarily in the 17th century, it began, from the end of that century, to house the destitute and the mentally ill, which gave it the nickname ‘tour-aux-fols’ (‘tower of the fools’). A report from 1785 describes deplorable conditions. An edict of 1765 ordered its demolition, but nothing came of it. The project for a new courthouse (1779), followed by letters patent of April 1785, led to its dismantling from October 1785 to November 1787, the materials being reused within the town. In 1908, a pillar of its foundations was uncovered during works.