Château de Sedan is a castle situated in Sedan, France, near the river Meuse. Covering an area of 35,000 square metres in its seven floors.
Around 1424, Eberhard II von der Mark built a manor with two towers around a church over a period of six years. When Eberhard died in 1440, his son Jean de la Marck began reinforcing the fortress, but it was Robert II de la Marck, the grandson of Jean, who finished the most important work. In 1530, the fortifications of the manor were modernised by the construction of a circular boulevard and terraces with cannons, thickening the 4.5-metre curtain wall by an additional 26 metres (85 ft). The bastions were added during the course of the next century, but some of them were eventually dynamited at the end of the 19th century. In 1699, the principality having been absorbed into France in 1642 (during the Thirty Years' War), and the castle having been transformed into a garrison, Vauban built the door of the Princes that was adapted to the progress of artillery. In 1822, the Church of Saint-Martin was demolished and replaced with a store for cannonballs.
On September 1, 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War, the Army of Chalons was defeated at the Battle of Sedan. Napoleon III surrendered the following day in the small neighboring city of Donchery.
The castle was used as a military hospital by the German army in World War I. Sedan was also the site of a French loss to the Germans in World War II in the Battle of Sedan (1940).
The castle was given by the French Army to the city of Sedan in 1962. Today the castle contains a hotel and a museum showing the lives of inhabitants throughout its history and the Franco-Prussian War.
References:The Beckov castle stands on a steep 50 m tall rock in the village Beckov. The dominance of the rock and impression of invincibility it gaves, challenged our ancestors to make use of these assets. The result is a remarkable harmony between the natural setting and architecture.
The castle first mentioned in 1200 was originally owned by the King and later, at the end of the 13th century it fell in hands of Matúš Èák. Its owners alternated - at the end of the 14th century the family of Stibor of Stiborice bought it.
The next owners, the Bánffys who adapted the Gothic castle to the Renaissance residence, improved its fortifications preventing the Turks from conquering it at the end of the 16th century. When Bánffys died out, the castle was owned by several noble families. It fell in decay after fire in 1729.
The history of the castle is the subject of different legends.