The tour de Navès is a fortified tower constructed from the 16th century, located in the ''
commune'' of
Navès in the
Tarn ''
département
In the administrative divisions of France, the department (, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. There are a total of 101 ...
'' of France.
[ "Tour de Navès". Retrieved 16 October 2022.]
It was listed as a ''
monument historique
() is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which national heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a collection of buildings, ...
'' on 30 August 1995.
[
]
History
There is evidence that in the 10th or 11th century the site was protected by wooden stakes. In the 13th century, it was owned by the Saint-Benoîts of Castres
Castres (; ''Castras'' in the Languedocian dialect, Languedocian dialect of Occitan language, Occitan) is the sole Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Tarn (department), Tarn Departments of France, department in the Occitania (adminis ...
. During the French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion were a series of civil wars between French Catholic Church, Catholics and Protestantism, Protestants (called Huguenots) from 1562 to 1598. Between two and four million people died from violence, famine or disease di ...
, Protestants occupied the site and restored its defence. The tower is built on the rock with a moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...
. Its layout is similar to a village defence fort and there is no sign today of domestic or functional facilities. The loophole
A loophole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the purpose, implied or explicitly stated, of the system.
Originally, the word meant an arrowslit, a narrow vertic ...
s permit a cross-fire defence and cannot predate the invention of firearms, suggesting that the building was rebuilt in the 16th or early 17th century. Post holes in the ground could be evidence of a half-timbered structure.[
]
References
Monuments historiques of Tarn (department)
{{Coord, 43, 33, 27, N, 2, 13, 41, E, region:FR_type:landmark, display=title