Château de Dieppe

The Château de Dieppe stands on a clifftop at the western end of the seafront, its stone towers looking out over the English Channel. The château was built in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, one of the few significant medieval fortifications still intact on this stretch of the Normandy coast. It houses the Musée de Dieppe, which is one of the better regional museums in Normandy.

The collection covers Dieppe's long and varied history: its role as a trading port, the remarkable ivory-carving tradition, and a solid collection of paintings by artists who knew the town. Works by Boudin, Pissarro, Renoir, and Sickert all feature, along with some striking prints by Camille Saint-Saëns, who was a Dieppe regular. The views from the castle walls over the harbour and beach are among the best in town.

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The château's most distinctive collection is its ivory carvings — intricately worked pieces produced by Dieppe craftsmen during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the town was Europe's leading centre for ivory work. Dieppe's sailors brought back African elephant ivory, and local craftsmen became so skilled that "Dieppe ivory" became a recognized category among collectors across Europe. The craft declined after the abolition of the slave trade disrupted the supply chains, but several hundred pieces survive in the museum.