Château de Coraboeuf

Preceded on the north by a half-filled moat, the castle buildings occupy the north and east sides of a platform bounded on the west by a surrounding wall, a vestige of the old ramparts. The assaults of the "écorcheurs", the demolition ordered by Louis XI in 1478, and the fire in January 1576 set by the Huguenot army of Casimir Duc des Deux Ponts have left the most important part of the ancient fortress standing. The main entrance opens onto a square courtyard, comprising a carriage gate and a pedestrian gate surmounted by three openings for the drawbridge. This entrance tower, like the surrounding wall and the three towers flanking this quadrilateral to the west, east and south, appears to have been built in the 14th century. To the left of the courtyard is a building dating from 1860 and designed in the 15th century style. The two storeys are pierced with cross windows and large, well-profiled louvres. The end of the building is backed by an ancient keep, one of the most curious examples of feudal architecture in the Beaune area. It consists of a large square tower (10 m), the ground floor of which forms a vast vaulted room that houses an exhibition on the history of the château. The upper floor features four corbelled turrets. The keep's firm structure, the size of its materials and the thickness of its walls make it the most perfect type of what was known in the Middle Ages as a fortified house. The body of the building attached to the keep on the southern side dates from the 15th and 16th centuries, but was part of the original construction when it was remodelled in the 18th century. To the east of this complex, there is an old rectangular pond, a small pavilion with a ground floor and a half-storey with bays framed with crossettes.

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