Chateau Gaillard

Chateau Gaillard stands on a chalk cliff above the Seine River near Les Andelys in Normandy, France, built in an unusually rapid two-year span between 1196 and 1198 under the direction of King Richard I of England, known as Richard the Lionheart, to guard the approach to his duchy of Normandy against the French crown. Its design incorporated some of the most advanced military architecture of its time, including a concentric layout of successive defensive rings and a distinctive scalloped outer wall of closely spaced rounded projections, a form that let defenders fire along the wall face with minimal blind spots. Despite its formidable design, the castle fell in 1204 after a lengthy siege by King Philip II of France, whose forces exploited an unguarded latrine shaft to gain entry, a breach that effectively ended English control of Normandy. The castle was later partly dismantled on the orders of Cardinal Richelieu in the seventeenth century, and its ruins, though incomplete, remain a well preserved example of medieval concentric castle design.