- FRANCE - PART ONE -

Loches : Part 5

LINKS to other pages in the FRANCE PART ONE site and to the Colin Day Travelling Days series:

The entry to the 'Dungeon' with granite stairs leading to the upper floors.

The ground floor - the ‘commoners' level - was used as a store, wine cellar and armoury (right). A well, to supply water to the Dungeon and surrounding buildings, is situated in the south-east comer.

The roof and floors of the Dungeon have disappeared but on the west wall one can still see a fireplace in each of the three storeys (left).

By means of the staircase shown in the top picture we reach the first floor. This is at the level of the lowest of the three fireplaces and is the site of the Grand Hall, a state reception room where the Lord of the fortress could render judgment. Another staircase within the East wall allows access to second floor. Here the Lord assembled his counsellors and close members of the family. To preserve a semblance of intimacy this floor would have been divided by tapestries or partitions.

Looking down to the south east corner of the ground floor which shows the well mentioned above (left)

In the underground galleries we are 20 metres below the level of the courtyard. This gallery was hollowed out of the rock in the 11th century to extract the tufa stone, used in the construction of the Dungeon. During the middle ages some of these passages were used as refuges and they also allowed people to leave the fortress during times of siege.

The torture chamber situated in the Round Tower. All that remains in the chamber is the iron bar and rings to which the prisoner was attached.

Door into a cell in the 'chatelet' (left).

Restraining irons in the 'chatelet' (right).

A 1995 reproduction of an iron cage is to be seen in the 'chatelet. (left and below)François-Nicolas Dubuisson, who visited Loches in the 16th century, noted that, ‘(the cages) are not entirely in iron but in wood fortified on the outside with bands of iron, square, about six and a half feet in each sense, boarded top and bottom. There is a slit to allow the passage of meat (food) in one of the sides and another in the door throught which a basin was passed ... and it was here that the prisoner placed himself to empty his bowels’.