The Tour Mélusine is the keep of a former castle in the commune of Vouvant. This keep and watchtower, built at the end of the 12th century or the beginning of the 13th century, is the only vestige of the ancient castle of the Lords of Lusignan built in the present location. This castle was separated from the fortified town of Vouvant by a moat. A chapel, long gone, was leaning against the tower.
This tower, 45 m high from the ditch and with its cylindrical shape, is original from that time. Indeed, the majority of the castles of this region and of this time are of the 'Niortais' style (a square tower with round towers at each corner).
The keep has a square base, which indicates the height of the curtain wall that surrounded the courtyard of the castle, which is today the Place du Bail ('bail' meaning 'fortified enclosure').
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).