Château des Barons d'Ezpeleta

The Barons of Ezpeleta had a castle built around the year 1000. Baroness Juliana Henriquez died without descendants in 1694, and bequeathed the castle to the inhabitants of Espelette. In 1997, an archaeological survey on its periphery, in the form of trench borings, revealed the remains of a fortress from the late Middle Ages. These vestiges are in fact those of a vast enclosure flanked by 5 towers, in the shape of an irregular polygon which, it seems, extended over the whole district. The corner tower was listed in the inventory of Historic Monuments in 1937 and the entire castle in 1993. It houses permanent exhibitions.