Photo : Raimond Spekking / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Château d'Arques-la-Bataille
The ruins of the château d'Arques-la-Bataille, in the Seine-Maritime, occupy a chalky promontory overlooking the Arques valley, not far from Dieppe. The site was born around 1040 with the wooden keep of Guillaume d'Arques, besieged then taken by the duke of Normandy in 1052–1053.
In 1123, Henry I Beauclerc rebuilt it in stone: a Romanesque keep about twenty metres on each side, surrounded by an enclosure flanked by towers that follows the rocky spur, above a dry ditch fifteen to twenty metres deep. The castle was the last Norman bastion to surrender to Philip Augustus, in 1204. A gate of 1367 and an artillery bastion of the early sixteenth century complete the ensemble.
In 1589, the battle of Arques saw Henry IV defeat the League's troops. Abandoned in the seventeenth century, the castle served as a stone quarry. Listed as a historic monument, it is discovered by a perimeter path; guided tours, organised with a local association, let you explore the inside of the ruins.
