Niort Marais poitevin – Vallée de la Sèvre Niortaise Tourist Office offers practical informations to book and organize your trip in Niort and in the Marais Poitevin, “Grand Site de France”.Gites, hotels, guest houses, campsites… come and relax in a quiet place, over the river Sèvre Niortaise and its castles. Ride by boat, by walk or by bike : conquer the Green Venice. Discover animations, activities, sites you must see, restaurants… to move during your next holidays between plain and marsh.
Here is how Patrick began its visit with a small group for an improvised visit. The site was closed on Tuesday there, but Coudray-Salbart intrigues and we want to discover its mysteries... It is about a castle-fort of the XIIIth century which we guess according to our progress. At first a tower comes to light, then it seems majestic with its towers among six, impregnable facing the river, the Sèvre Niortaise.
We shall begin the visit by traveling the girdle, the corridor in the thickness of bulwarks, only in Europe. Never this fortress underwent assault. It remains moreover a mystery and it will be moreover the theme of this article. Let us see together some defenses which this invincible castle has!
Everything is question of architecture. Staves dug in the rock, the barbican (strengthened work defending the entrance of the farmyard) … Other indication: boulins in walls. I do not evoke archères (cracks of shooting). Let us see, holes, regularly spaced out from each other between two towers, which allowed to introduce beams there on which was arranged a wooden gallery facilitating the shooting of the soldiers in the direction of the enemy.
Having borrowed the portal of the barbican which today does not exist any more, we arrive in the farmyard, the place of life of the castle. Then, it was necessary to cross the drawbridge of the tower of Portal the bat of which " picked " the invader, without forgetting the crossbow with tower or ballista of a range of 300 m. installed in one of the visitables rooms!
A major and unique element: the girdle, this corridor which allowed the soldier to pass in the other one while being protected.
You will have understood him, this castle-fort is extraordinary! I deeply invite you to visit it and to participate in the next animations proposed by the association of Friends of the castle of Coudray-Salbart who will plunge you at the heart of the Middle Ages.
Dive at the heart of the Middle Ages by visiting the castle of Coudray-Salbart to Echiré and by coming in large numbers to participate in Médiévales Quintilis.
It is this weekend!
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