Porte des Aires

Public areas, where the grain was crushed but also where the local tax was collected in kind until the revolution, were often located high up in windy places that allowed better separation of dust and sieves from the grain. They gave their name to this district.
We are outside the medieval quarter whose eastern limit is constituted by the Rue des Aires at the bottom of which rises the Clock Tower. The belfry of this tower, clearly visible from the Porte des Aires, marks the limit of the old nucleus.
The door that opened here does not therefore belong to the Middle Ages. It was built later, when the dwellings overflowed from the fortification. The original 12th- and 16th-century enclosure was extended, but in accordance with the architectural customs of that period, the walls of the ramparts were thinner, the gates wider, and no tower seems to have been built over it.
However, there are many metal rings sealed into the rampart outside the town. It was probably a "parking lot" for the beasts of burden that carried the sheaves of wheat to the areas.