The ancien "Prisciniacus", mentioned in VIth century by Gregoire of Tours, was a fief of the canons of Saint Martin of Tours in IXth century.

Installed on the edge of the plate which dominates Claise, the vestiges of the castle of Grand Pressigny, controls several roads and valleys. This is why, like Loches, a defensive fortress was very early built there about 1193 per Guillaume de Pressigny.

We arrives the fortress, which remains of this rich person passed, by a sleeping bridge which replaced the drawbridge of formerly whose projection where slipped the harrow is always visible. This entry, which faces the west, is preceded by a triangular weephole, unfortunately destroyed partly.

Dry ditches were dug in the limestone on the side of the plate, vulnerable spot of the fortress.

The fortified town is surrounded of ramparts which dominates of its thirty five meters what remains keep of XIIème century, of which two of the sides broke down in the morning of February 6, 1988.

This keep, as in Loches, constitutes to it point-key of the system of defense of the citadel. This gigantic 35 m height square tower, is shouldered with its angles of flat buttresses. With the foot of this keep, existed an ultimate enclosure, a "chemise", with turns in the angles which one still sees the vestiges. In XVème century, it was crowned machicolation of which there remain the supports of the beams.

To the south, dominating the city, the rampart, reinforced by circular towers, skirts the slope. In the south-western corner, a higher tower, widened at the top and flush obliquely, is connected by a covered way to the two big towers which defended the entry of the place.

This fortress was the theatre many combat; Jean sans Peur, duke of Bourgogne and combined of English, seized some in 1417 and lost it the following year in aid of Charles VII.

During more than five centuries, thirty seven lords followed one another the head of this baronnie: it belonged to Pressigny until 1302, Craon, the Chabot and Beauvau in XVth century, in Prie in 1501, and finally in Honorat of Savoy Villars.

The history of Grand Pressigny retains especially Honorat of Savoy, marquis de Villars, count of Trente and baron of Pressigny-the-Grand which died there in 1580. Indeed, it is with him that one owes the construction of 1550 to 1580 of the castle of which we can admire the vestiges today.

The castle of Renaissance style is built in the center of the medieval fortress according to criteria's of XVIth century. There remains about it a wing which divides the court into two parts. The Western frontage of this long building of two stages appears quite austere but the frontage Is present a very different aspect: all the ground floor is occupied by an open gallery of seven arcades in semicircular arch with ridges flattened vaults .
Columns, surmounted capitals of ionic style supplement decoration. This main building is prolonged side of the borough by a small square house built in light projection on a lathe of the rampart. It is covered by a dome with imperial, and is surmounted by a richly carved chimney. The octagonal arrow of a turret of staircase dominates the roofs.

A hall on the paved ground, in which one penetrates by four large arcades, remains of XVIth century.

The splendour of this Lord's residence impressed the visitor, thus the Chastillon topographer made of it an engraving which shows us that the castle of Savoy Villars was regarded as one of most important in Loire Valley.

To the foot of the keep, the tower "Vironne", old belfry of guet of the purest Italian style of form octagonal and covered by a dome, contains a spiral staircase which served the stages of the disappeared buildings. To its top, an elegant balcony, supported by carved corbels, makes it possible to the visitors to understand well the strategic position of this dearly disputed rocky outcrop. The visitor, placed at this place will have, downwards gardens of the large court of the castle, a beautiful sight on reassuring the tiled roofs and slates of the borough of Grand Pressigny which are spread nicely and, beyond, on the valley of Claise.

Side of the plate, one guesses, in the medium of the fields, the vestiges of the walls which surrounded a vast formal garden. In this park, with the hollow of a discreet small valley dug by the ruisselet resulting from the fountain of Ferrus, hiding place a curious construction covered by a cupola, a "nymphée", left pastoral boudoir including a round room with an entry in surbased arch. On the concave frontage, initial the S and V have the memory of Honorat of Savoy, marquis de Villars.


The Museum of the prehistory of Grand Pressigny

The beautiful renaissance home with arcades, shelters since 1955 the departmental museum of the prehistory of international fame.

Divided into six stages, this didactic space follows the evolution of the man of Paleolithic old until the ages of metals. The room of paleontology shows rich collections of vegetable and animal fossils present in the sediments left in Touraine by the seas which, here of the million years, occupied the area.
The room of Prehistory makes it possible to understand the diversity and the quality of local Préhistoric industries. During four hundred thousand years the prehistoric men remained in Touraine where the flint of quality abounds. They cut this matter to work superb tools there. Their production has interested the populations of other countries. In the end of the Neolithic era, the large blades were diffused towards the Jura and the Alps. Mouldings, models, interactive terminals , video, supplement the exhibition and bring a lot of informations on the life of the prehistoric men.


The great crash of Saturday February 6, 1988.

In the morning of February 6, 1988, the repeated winter rigours, associated a reducing ground, were right suddenly of the keep of the castle. The feet of this stone colossus, old of eight centuries, rested on Gruyere. One of the neighbors of the square tower, was free for a retrospective awful fright, a block of stone having fallen into its kitchen.



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