La Tour d'Avalon

Historic site and monument

LIEN FICHE SIT 408192

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Tour d'Avalon
38530 Saint-Maximin

La Tour d’Avalon - 33 metres high, with an internal diameter of around 8 metres and walls 2 metres thick on the first floor - bears witness to a medieval past.

It was restored in 1895 by Carthusian monks in honor of Saint-Hugues d'Avalon, who was born here in 1140.
The Tour d'Avalon bears witness to the history of an ancient fortified village and of a family of lords, present in the Haut Grésivaudan since the year 1000: the Wallon and Romestang d'Avalon.
Part of the early 14th-century walls can still be seen in today's restored building, remnants of the Delphine tower erected at that time, when the château became a stronghold, complete with surrounding ramparts.
In the 12th century, Guillaume III Romestang, seigneur du mandement d'Avalon, and his wife, Anna de Theys, occupied the ancestral stronghold (castrum), located a little to the north of the present tower, and already featuring a round tower.
In 1132, the Romestang family was known as the "Poype family". In fact, they lived on a motte castrale, a mound of earth with a medieval defensive dwelling at its summit. We can still see the remains of a water ditch, the present-day marshland now classified as a Sensitive Natural Area (ENS), which also served as a fishpond.