Photo : Xabi Rome-Hérault / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Château de Rauzan
The château de Rauzan is a medieval fortress of the Entre-deux-Mers, at Rauzan, in the Gironde. It is built on a rock occupied since Antiquity and attributed to John Lackland, duke of Guyenne and king of England. The lords of Madaillan, loyal to the king of England, counted among them a participant in the battle of Poitiers in 1356. Bertrand du Guesclin took it in 1377 during the Hundred Years' War.
The cylindrical keep dates from about 1325. The lord's lodging, built in the early fourteenth century, was remodelled in the fifteenth; its tower of honour has a Flamboyant Gothic entrance. The defences included a barbican, drawbridges, dry ditches, a portcullis and a turret. The Durfort de Duras let it decline; Bordeaux quarrymen took stones and caused the collapse of the north part.
The commune acquired the ruins in 1900, and clearing of the site began in the 1970s. The castle has been listed as a historic monument since 1862; it served as a setting for the film The Phantom Baron (1942).
