An inventory of works within the city walls - Besançon

5
Waterstation guardhouse
(Corps de garde de la gare d’eau)
Nineteenth century
Chamars Promenade
It controlled access of boats
to the water station.
6
Town bastion
Seventeenth and nineteenth centuries
Chamars Promenade
Built in the Middle Ages on an islet
on the edge of the river, the town mill
was encompassed by Vauban into a
bastion in order to protect it.
In the nineteenth century, the creation
of the towpath for the Canal Monsieur
rendered its use obsolete . The bastion
was called the town mill bastion
and became a real defence work and
became known as the town bastion.
7
Chamars bastioned tower
Seventeenth and nineteenth centuries
Chamars Promenade
Remarkable innovations by Vauban,
the first bastioned towers flanking
urban defences were built in Besançon
from 1687. Smaller than the bastions,
they have two firing levels. The upper
one, open to the skies and the lower
one to shelter the canons from shots
raining down from the neighbouring
high ground. Vauban, keen to protect
the people, made these works partly
with brick as splinters from such
material caused by canonballs were
less dangerous than splinters of stone.
The Chamars bastioned tower was
built on the rock, on the river bank,
between 1687 and 1691. It was
Vauban’s only tower to have survived
to date approximately as he designed
it. It was covered in the nineteenth
century as were the other towers of
the defences encircling the town.