Photo : Chateau de Langoiran / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Château de Langoiran
The château de Langoiran is an old fortress of the Entre-deux-Mers, in the Gironde, classified as a historic monument since 1892. It was built in the thirteenth century by the Seguin d'Escoussans family, lords of Langoiran until their alliance with the Albrets in 1345. The Montferrands, Daffis and Jumilhacs succeeded them.
In 1649, during the Fronde, the duke of Épernon seized it, burned it and blew up the keep. The château fell into ruin in the 1650s–1660s. In the fifteenth century, it was a royal fortress then, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the residence of presidents of the Bordeaux parliament. In August 1944, a Resistance leader received there the agreement of Bordeaux's surrender.
The cylindrical fourteenth-century keep keeps vaulted rooms, medieval frescoes of Saint Michael and Saint Peter and a Gothic fireplace. The whole is organised in courtyards and enclosures surrounded by moats. The Bibonne family has owned it since 1972, and the association of Friends of the château de Langoiran organises restoration and medieval festivals.
