Castle of Dieppe

History of the castle

"Dieppa" is attested in 1030. A small village of fishermen undoubtedly exists as of this time and draws its name from the coastal river born from the junction of the rivers Arques, Eaulne and Béthune. But it is the conquest of England by the Norman ones as from 1066, which will give him all its importance by the development of the relations transmanches. William the Conqueror re-embarks himself for Great Britain since Dieppe on December 6, 1067. The city knows an increasing prosperity as from XIIe century. The castle founded in 1188 and is disputed between Richard Lion Heart and Philippe Auguste. This one devastates the new fortress in 1195 and benefits the passage from it to set fire to the city.

Dieppe plays a considerable role during the one hundred Year old War Of the sailors and corsairs dieppois carry out a victorious raid on Southampton in 1339. The English seize some in 1420 and preserve it 15 years during. It is released by Charles of Marets for the account of Charles VII, October 28, 1435. It is certainly about this time that the fortress is the subject of a total rebuilding. Besieged last once by the troops of Talbot in 1443, the royal army ordered by Jean de Dunois (the Bastard one of Orleans) and the young dolphin Louis (future Louis XI) definitively constrained English to leave the sector in August.

The castle:

Built on the hill which dominates the city and the sea on the side of the west, it was high in 1435 by the rebellion of Caux, raised then against the English occupation. While the castle of Arch had remained English, as well as Pollet with its bastille and its forts, Dieppe had shaken the yoke and was never taken again. To defend oneself, it builds the castle which remains still today. It is a square of buildings flanked of four stone circular towers, built and flint and whose whole is surrounded by deep ditches. Architecture lost any distinctive character. The history alone testifies to the foundation and attests the origin of this imposing mass which was never destroyed.

One still shows a window by which one claims that in 1650 the duchess of Longueville, organizing from the Sling in Normandy, went down to run away herself in Pourville and from there in Holland. As we already said, XVIe century added to the castle the tower of the bell-tower of the old Saint-Remy cheese church.

Abbot Cochet "archaeological Repertory of the department of Seine-Lower" Paris, 1871.