Ramparts of Thiers, Ramparts of a medieval fortified town in Thiers, Puy-de-Dôme, France.

The ramparts of Thiers are a series of concentric fortifications built between the 11th and 16th centuries around the feudal castle and the Saint-Genès church. The surviving eastern section, made of pale stone with crenellations, now serves as a retaining wall for the sloping town. A small red-roofed projection and a square tower with a pointed spire rise above the houses.

Thiers was enclosed in at least five successive walls between the 11th and 16th centuries. The first, around the lord's castle and Saint-Genès church, was called the "murailhe du Palais du Chastel" in the 15th century. Louis II of Bourbon began the fourth, the "muraille de la ville", around 1400 during the Hundred Years' War. The fifth, in the 16th century, protected the eastern mountainside near the Durolle.

Street names inside the walls record the successive enclosures: the Rue du Palais follows the first wall, the Rue du Bourg the second. Thiers is unusual in that few streets have kept a name since the 15th century, so the present names mark each stage of growth. The gate of the first enclosure, walled up, is still visible above the Place du Pirou.

Only the eastern stretch of the walls survives, and it now holds back the earth of the sloping town, so it is seen from the streets below rather than walked on top. The Porte de la Bout was demolished at the end of the 19th century; the walled-up gate of the Tour carrée de la Chancellerie still shows above the Place du Pirou.

The gate of the first enclosure, the Porte de la Bout, was demolished at the end of the 19th century, but the Tour carrée de la Chancellerie that faced it still stands, backfilled and walled up, above the Place du Pirou. Look for it there.