Pournarokastro

A square tower, reduced to little more than a stump, stands on a low hill above the village of Pournarokastro, at the foot of Mount Panachaikon, not far from Patra. This is all that survives of a Frankish stronghold from the fourteenth century, a building recorded in feudal lists of 1364, 1408, 1463, 1467 and 1471 under a tangle of names: Prinarokastro, Cumarocastro, Camerocastro, Curnerocastro, or Cazadarocastro. Earlier travellers noted both a castle and a separate tower in the vicinity; today only the ruined tower remains, rising to roughly two and a half metres, its walls built of roughly hewn porous limestone. The lower part of the southeast corner is different in character, using larger, well-cut blocks, which may hint at an earlier phase or a more careful original construction. Scattered wall fragments and rubble around the base suggest there was once an enclosing circuit, now almost entirely lost.