The Pentagonal Tower dates from 1359. It is part of the ramparts that have protected the town of Castellane since the Middle Ages. At the foot of the Tower, the Jardins de la Tour site offers a magnificent setting overlooking the village, the Roc and the Verdon valley.
Description
The interior of the Tower is not accessible to the public.
The fortifications of Castellane are traditionally dated to 1359 and the years that followed. While the Pentagonal Tower can be dated back to the second half of the 14th century, it is not possible to say when the transformations observed, particularly in the machicolation and the gorge, took place. The tower was classified as a historical monument in 1921.
The pentagonal tower is the most imposing of the city's fortification system. It is also the best preserved and the highest, since although it is not the tallest (it measures a little less than 20 m in height), it is nevertheless built at the highest point of the ramparts. Pentagonal in plan, but of an irregular pentagon, it has five floors. It is an open tower at the throat, even if the interior elevation has been largely walled over the centuries. Its masonry is composed of small, rather irregular courses of squared limestone rubble.
The quoins, made of dressed stone, are mainly made of tuff. On the fourth floor, the quoins are made of large, rusticated dressed stone. This level is also crowned by a machicolation of which only the four-quarter-round projecting consoles remain. The machicolation itself has given way to a floor covered with a gable roof and hollow tiles. Traces of two arrow slits can still be seen in the tower's masonry. The first is under the consoles of the machicolation of the northeast elevation, and the second at the level of the 2nd floor, in the west elevation.
Cf. https://dossiersinventaire.maregionsud.fr/dossier/ouvrage-fortifie-dit-tour-pentagonale/791ec606-dacf-481a-9f1b-c065000c0ca7