Château de Nemours

The Chateau de Nemours is a castle in the town and commune of Nemours in the Seine-et-Marne departement of France. Located in the extreme south of the Paris conurbation, it stands on the banks of the Loing river. Transformed into a museum between 1903 and 1999, it houses collections of pottery. It has been listed since 1926 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.

The first stones of the building were laid around 1120 by Orson on left bank of the Loing. A village had been established on a nearby hill since the Merovingian era (according to the excavation in 1898 of Merovingian sarcophagi) in Saint les Nemours, on the left bank of the Loing. The first lords had probably installed a high castle mound on the right bank of the Loing in a place still called "le chatelet".

The establishment of such a work next to the Loing was justified by the presence of a ford permitting crossing of the river before the construction of a later bridge. In 1170, the second lord of Nemours (of which there is a record), Gauthier I de Villebeon, chamberlain to king Louis VII, obtained a charter for his commune.

The castle is composed of a girdled keep of four round towers and a square watch tower overlooking the valley of the Loing. The main courtyard is surrounded by medieval houses which constitute the heart of the historical heritage of the town between the communal mills, the church and the district of the clerics.