Built in the 13th century by Pierre de Savoie, the castle of La Tour-de-Peilz served as a fortress and refuge, as an observation post of traffic along lake Geneva, and as a customs post.
In 1476, during the Burgundy wars, it was heavily damaged. It was nearly three centuries later, that in 1747 the French officer Jean Grésier purchased and transformed the building. It remained private property until 1979, when the city of La Tour-de-Peilz purchased it, after a public vote.
Both towers, the walls, the ramparts and the moat were put under a preservation order as a historical monument in 1973. In 1987 the Swiss Museum of Games was inaugurated on the 1st and 2nd floors. The halls on the ground-floor are put at public disposal for different events.
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).