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La Haye du Puits (canton of La Haye du Puits, Manche) Tower |
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La Haye du Puits (canton of La Haye du Puits, Manche) Tower |
La Haye-du-Puits was the headquarters of a powerful barony whose lord, Turstin Haldup, was the founder of the abbey of Lessay. A slender tower with a quadrangular ground plan seems to be the only vestige of a fortification of the shell keep variety consisting of a narrow circular or polygonal enclosure in stone, strengthened with a tower, which was located on the top of a motte. A 19th century engraving shows its walls which have now been lost.
This type of fortification dates from the 12th century and is especially well represented in England from where it spread elsewhere, initially in the reign of Henry I whose fiefdom included the Cotentin
region.
