Rabelais speaks of the Tour de Beaumont as a pile of stones that fell from the apron of Gargamelle, Gargantua's mother, when she was preparing to build a bridge over the Gironde.
In reality, the Beaumont Tower was built at an undetermined time, estimates varying from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 19th century. It is definitely a "landmark", that is to say a landmark, a mark, a signal for sailors heading towards one of the ports on the right bank, Mortagne or Port Maubert.
To this bitter - There are others on the banks and hillsides of the estuary. Many a sailor in the past owed his salvation by guiding himself on it in order to avoid shoals and find the hoped-for entrance to the good channel.
The Gironde is subject to strong tidal currents and sandbars moving randomly from the storms from its mouth and the "dangers" of Cordouan, to Bordeaux, 70 km upstream to where we are. .