openparcelsThe world’s land registry, today and tomorrow.openparcels

Remarkable land · Le Verdon-sur-Mer, Gironde

At the mouth of the Gironde, on a rocky plateau bared at low tide, the royal lighthouse completed in 1611

A 67-metre lighthouse out at sea, listed as a historic monument in 1862, still in service and kept all year round.

At the mouth of the Gironde, on a rocky plateau bared at low tide, the royal lighthouse completed in 1611
Aerial view. The white line follows plot BW 1.

History

The Gironde estuary leads to the port of Bordeaux, and its sandbanks caused many shipwrecks. In the fourteenth century Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Aquitaine, had a fire tower built on the island of Cordouan, the "Black Prince’s tower". Each night a hermit lit a fire on it to guide sailors. Two centuries later the tower lay in ruins.

Henri III decided to build a lighthouse in its place and gave the project to the engineer Louis de Foix. Work began in 1584. The Wars of Religion and the cost of the works slowed it down. Henri IV relaunched it and made it a monument to royal power, with apartments for the king and a chapel. The lighthouse was completed in 1611, twenty-seven years after work began: a round tower of three storeys, 37 m high. Louis de Foix died before seeing it finished.

By the 1780s the top of the tower was in poor condition and sailors found the light’s range too short. The engineer Joseph Teulère won the competition launched in 1786 and raised the tower by some twenty metres in 1788 and 1789. He kept the Renaissance building, except for its lantern. The tower now rises 67 m above the sea, on eight levels. In 1823 Augustin Fresnel tested his stepped lens there for the first time.

The lighthouse was listed as a historic monument in 1862. It belongs to the State; since 2010 its keeping and visitor reception have been entrusted to the Gironde estuary joint authority (SMIDDEST). Two keepers live there in turns, for a week or a fortnight. It is the last lighthouse on the French coast to be inhabited all year round. The light carries 40 km. In 2021 UNESCO inscribed the lighthouse on the World Heritage List.

The plateau bared at each low tide lies within the marine nature park of the Gironde estuary and the Pertuis sea. Surveys carried out over some fifteen years have recorded 250 animal species and 74 plant species there. The cadastre of Le Verdon-sur-Mer draws a single object on it: plot BW 1, a disc of 1,340 m² that follows the round base of the lighthouse. The local development plan zones it NP, natural and protected, under the historic monument easement.

Our view

On the aerial view, the lighthouse is a pale circle in the middle of water or sand, depending on the tide. The sandbanks shift during the winter, and the site manager warns that access conditions can change every year.

On site, the boat stops some way off. You finish on foot across the plateau, then along a stone causeway to the door, between two hours before low water and one hour after.

Updated 28 October 2026

More remarkable land

In Carnac, north of the town, rows of standing stones over 4 kilometres in 70 hectares of heath
Carnac, MorbihanIn Carnac, north of the town, rows of standing stones over 4 kilometres in 70 hectares of heathSome 3,000 menhirs raised in the Neolithic, listed as historic monuments in 1889 and inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List on 12 July 2025.Read the story →
In Arles, between the Rhône and the sea, the largest commune in mainland France and its 33,647 plots
Arles, Bouches-du-RhôneIn Arles, between the Rhône and the sea, the largest commune in mainland France and its 33,647 plots757 km², seven times the size of Paris, 51,811 inhabitants at the 2023 census, and a Roman amphitheatre whose plot follows the ellipse.Read the story →
In Saint-Véran, in the Queyras, a village of larch and stone stretched along a south-facing slope at 2,042 metres
Saint-Véran, Hautes-AlpesIn Saint-Véran, in the Queyras, a village of larch and stone stretched along a south-facing slope at 2,042 metresA commune of 160 people in the Queyras regional nature park, with its school, town hall and church above 2,000 m.Read the story →GuidesFrench zoning letters U, AU, A and N: can you build on this plot?Every plot in a French town with a PLU sits in an urban, future urban, agricultural or natural zone. What the planning code says about each, three real plots on the map, and how to get a binding answer.Read the guide →

Sources

  1. Le phare de Cordouan (SMIDDEST), « 400 ans d'histoire »
  2. Le phare de Cordouan (SMIDDEST), « La vie au phare » (gardiens, travaux)
  3. Le phare de Cordouan (SMIDDEST), « Un patrimoine naturel exceptionnel »
  4. Le phare de Cordouan (SMIDDEST), « Un monument, des acteurs » (gestion depuis 2010)
  5. Le phare de Cordouan (SMIDDEST), accès au phare et horaires de marée
  6. UNESCO, Centre du patrimoine mondial, « Le phare de Cordouan » (bien n° 1625, 2021)
  7. Cadastre (IGN, API Carto), parcelle BW 1 du Verdon-sur-Mer
  8. Géoportail de l'Urbanisme, PLU et servitudes du Verdon-sur-Mer
  9. Géorisques (API GASPAR), risques recensés sur la commune du Verdon-sur-Mer
Use this page on your site

Place, tourist office, town, press: paste this code to show the aerial view and a link to the story, or download the image with its credit line.

Download the aerial view

Aerial photographs: IGN, BD ORTHO, Licence Ouverte. Plot outlines: French cadastral plan (DGFiP, IGN). Our editorial pact