The Tour d’Avalon – 33 metres high, with an inner diameter of about 8 metres and walls 2 metres thick on the first floor – bears witness to a medieval past.
It was restored in 1895 by the Carthusian monks in honour of Saint Hugh of Avalon, born here in 1140.
The Tour d’Avalon bears witness to the history of a former fortified village and of a family of lords present in the upper Grésivaudan from the year 1000: the Wallon and Romestang d’Avalon.
In the present restored building, part of the early 14th-century walls can still be made out, remains of the Dauphiné tower built at that time, when the castle became a stronghold with its surrounding ramparts.
In the 12th century, Guillaume III Romestang, lord of the mandement of Avalon, and his wife, Anna de Theys, occupied the ancestral fortified house (castrum), located a little further north than the current tower, which already had a round tower.
In 1132 the Romestang family was called « the de la Poype family ». Indeed, they lived on a motte, a mound of earth topped by a medieval dwelling with a defensive function. We can still see the remains of a water-filled moat, the present-day marsh now classified as a Sensitive Natural Area (ENS), which also served as a fish pond.
