Spanish enceinte of Condé-sur-l'Escaut

En un regard

Le château en bref

The former Spanish enceinte of Condé-sur-l'Escaut is the heir of a town fortified since the Middle Ages: a castle of the lords of Avesnes (1147–1170), and the first urban enceinte, built by Baldwin V of Flanders in 1184. Between 1654 and 1656, the Spanish undertook a modernisation programme, replacing part of the medieval wall with bastioned earthworks and adding a covered way and outer defences. Louis XIV took the town in 1676 (Treaty of Nijmegen, 1678). Vauban incorporated it into the Pré Carré: redoubts and earthen bastions in front of the Spanish enceinte, a new covered way with six redoubts, dry ditches with counter-mines, and a hydraulic system for flooding. The northern and western halves of the bastioned enceinte survive (the bastions du Jard, de Solre, de la Teste and de Tournai, the ravelin de Tournai, and the porte du Vautourneux); the southern and eastern fronts were demolished in 1931. The remains of the enceinte have been classified as a Monument Historique by order of 17 janvier 1935.