Château d'Ivry-la-Bataille

The donjon at Ivry, begun around AD 1000 in two building campaigns and complete by 1040, is among the earliest examples of the stone keep that would become a common feature of Norman castles across Europe. According to Orderic Vitalis it was built by an architect named Lanfred under the orders of Count Rodulf of Ivry — and Rodulf's wife Aubrée is said to have had the architect beheaded, to prevent him building a similar castle for another lord.

The keep has marked similarities with later Norman keeps — Avranches in Normandy, and Colchester Castle and the White Tower of London in England. A distinctive apse housing a chapel links Ivry, Colchester and the White Tower, and it has been suggested that Ivry was their model — unless all three copied a lost prototype, perhaps the ducal castle of Rouen, destroyed in the thirteenth century.

The castle was reconstructed several times up to the 15th century, gaining an outer wall with round towers and a gatehouse, and was repaired by Philibert de l'Orme in 1553. Only ruins remain overlooking the valley of the Eure; until excavation in 1967–82 the form and significance of the castle were unknown, but the cleared ruins are now presented as a historical site and protected as an official historical monument of France.