Saint-Roch Square

Squares are like the beating heart of cities and villages. You can instantly feel the pulse and energy of the entire community. So, whether you’re just passing through Saint-Roch Square or taking a moment to soak it all in, you can just sense its warm and inviting atmosphere. Long before Saint-Roch Square came into being, the site was a quarry for a type of sedimentary rock containing fossilized seashells, which was used to build Mont-de-Marsan’s second city walls. Once filled in and leveled to make a plain, this plot of land became home to new neighborhoods between the 17th and 18th centuries. Among them was the Saint-Roch district, named after the Christian patron saint of Montpellier, who was called upon during a plague epidemic that struck the region in the 1600s. During the French Revolution, the square went by a few different names: Place d’Armes, Place de la Confédération, and finally, Place de la Liberté, which is odd, given that during the same period, they installed a guillotine here twice, killing several people before a fairly large audience. On a lighter note, Saint-Roch Square was also the site of the city’s first bullfights. Around 1852, the city built its first portable, wooden bullring, and a decade later, the first bullfight between Spain and Landes took place there. The entire structure was unfortunately burnt down after an arson attack, and the town decided to build a permanent arena around 1889 – it’s the famous Plumaçon Arena. To honor its bullfighting past, the square was painted red between 2003 and 2016, which led to it being nicknamed “Place Rouge,” aka “Red Square,” by the locals. Today, after recent renovations, the square is a go-to spot in the city center, lined with cozy cafes and restaurants.