France · 11th century
Fort Du Guesclin ranks #4,061 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #321 of the 787 mapped in France. Founded 1026, it is older than 91% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 439 atlas entries founded in the 11th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,625 times in the last 60 days, more than 64% of the atlas. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how France compares in the castle statistics.
Fort Du Guesclin lies on the tidal island of Île du Guesclin close to the shore, north-east of Saint-Coulomb, between Saint-Malo and Cancale in the Ille-et-Vilaine department in Brittany, France.
The first building was erected in 1026 by a sergeant of Guesclin. It was a castle flanked by two walls and protected by three towers and a donjon. The water supply was provided by a 33 m deep cistern. In 1207 John Lackland, the King of England, occupied the fortress until Juhel III de Mayenne (also Juhaël de Mayenne, 1168–1220) regained it. The Guesclins left the fort in 1259 and settled in Plessis-Bertrand. The fort, which had fallen into ruin around 1500, was sold in 1589 to Guillaume de Chateaubriant of the House of Rieux. The old building was razed to the ground, and Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633–1707) later built a fortress to protect the coast against the English.
After its military value had been lost in 1826, the fort was sold and converted into a holiday home. In 1942 the premises were occupied by the German army and an anti-aircraft gun was installed there in the course of the construction of the Atlantic Wall. After the Allied landing of 1944 the fort came into the possession of the mayor of Saint-Servan. He sold it in 1959 to the singer Léo Ferré (1916–1993), who lived there until 1968.
In 1996 the fort was sold by Léo Ferré's heirs to the businessman Robert Porcher (1928–2011), who restored the building and used it as a residence.
Machine-translated from “Fort du Guesclin” on the German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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