Gerberoy

Perched on a hill in the Pays de Bray, Gerberoy is the land of roses, but also wisteria, clematis and daisies that spill over old walls, invade the lanes and occupy the cobbles. On this height, on the border of the kingdom of France and the duchy of Normandy, Normans and English crossed and recrossed swords with the French. William the Conqueror even faced his son there in 1079, when Robert Curthose had designs on Normandy. The village was again battered by John Lackland, the Burgundians, the Leaguers, before plague and fire devastated it in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The village is very photogenic with its ramparts, its gardens tiered in terraces on the site of the old castle built in 922, its cobbled streets, its old covered market, the little collegiate church of Saint-Pierre and the restored communal well.

← Other sites in Oise