Château d'Étampes

About

The Château d'Étampes is a former royal castle located in the French commune of Etampes in the Essonne department. Today, only the dungeon called Guinette's tower remains.

Location: The castle was built on the edge of a plateau of the Hurepoix, called the plateau of Guinette, overlooking the town of Etampes to the northwest. Located at an altitude of approximately 100 m, it overlooks the valleys of La Louette, La Chalouette and La June at the edge of a steep slope of 200 m long with a elevation of 25 m. It controlled the Paris-Orléans capital road, the backbone of the royal estate in the Junee valley, which passes at its feet. The geology of the site, studied by Henri Hureau de Senarmont, shows a succession of layers of thirty meters of sand, two meters of moellon, twenty-three meters of blue clay, twenty-four meters of clay limestone, four meters of sandstone and finally twenty-three meters of marne. The dungeon is now located at the end of the residential district of Guinette, above the railway and the station of Etampes.

A first castle was built under the reign of Robert the Pious west of...