Villeneuve-sur-Lot (or, before 1875, Villeneuve-d’Agen) has a history that dates back at least to Roman times, when there were legionary camps, craft districts, temples and fora. A thousand years later a Benedictine abbey had been established and a ‘bastide’ town created that was one of the most important and powerful in the South-West. Unusually, the bastide extended across both banks of the river.

Edward I, king of England and Duke of Aquitaine, ordered the construction of a bridge over the Lot in 1282, one of very few river crossing points at that time. In the C14th the town was fortified and it was of strategic importance during the Hundred Years war and the Wars of Religion. The walls and ramparts were torn down in 1653 after the defeat of the town which had sided with the French nobility against King Louis XIV in the Fronde civil war. This was the last military event the town experienced and it was relatively unaffected by the Revolution.

For centuries, up until the mid C19th, Villeneuve prospered as a place of riverside trade and commerce The town was a significant centre of the transportation of wood and cheese, copper and paper, wheat, wine and fruit from inland downstream to Bordeaux. Fruit-growing in particular lead to train loads of prunes (dried plums) being sent to Bordeaux and Paris and hence around the world.

The C13th Cieutats (or Old) Bridge is very noteworthy and it is contemporary with the renowned Valentré bridge in Cahors. Once topped by defensive towers, two of the originally four arches were replaced by a single span in the C17th, after they had become damaged. A chapel projects out over the river at one end of the bridge.

In the Villeneuve locality . . .