Vieux Château de Noyers

What you will see

Follow the Ronde des Miles, an hour-long historical walk named after the Miles, the lords of Noyers, many of whom bore that first name. Twelve panels tell the story of the castle as the path winds through the green ruins to viewpoints over the village and the Serein. In the former bailey, the Cour des Artistes displays gargoyles carved during the Gargouillosium, a stone-carving gathering held at the castle every year. Each summer, young volunteers from France and abroad work on clearing and restoring two of the towers.

History

In the 11th century the lords of Noyers held a great square keep and a chapel here, with some eighty fiefs depending on the castle. Clarembaud de Noyers surrounded the keep with a wall before leaving with Philip Augustus on the crusade of 1190, where he died. His brother Hugues, bishop of Auxerre, then rebuilt it from 1196 to 1206 as a vast modern fortress, with a lord's residence, a triple enclosure, underground passages and deep ditches, and walled the village below. In 1216 it held out through a siege of several months.

At the end of the 13th century Miles X de Noyers, later Marshal of France, placed the castle under the dukes of Burgundy, and in 1419 the duchess bought it outright and had it repaired and armed with cannon. It passed through many hands before the Prince of Condé, leader of the Protestant party, made it a stronghold in the Wars of Religion. Fought over by Catholics and Protestants, then by the Catholic League and the king's men, it was destroyed in 1599 on the orders of Henri IV. In 1998 the association Le Patrimoine Oublié was founded to save what remained.