Colombier

Colombier is a former municipality inside the district of Boudry in the canton of Neuchatel in Switzerland. The municipalities of Auvernier, Bole and Colombier merged on 1 January 2013 into the new municipality of Milvignes. Colombier is first cited in 1228 as Columbier. Four lakeside settlements from the neolithic and the Bronze Age were observed in Colombier. One of the largest Roman generation villas in Switzerland turned into excavated from beneath the citadel in 1840–42 by way of Frederic Dubois de Montperreux.

It become built in more than one stages among the first and third centuries AD right into a palatial mansion with a peristyle, as a minimum two baths with mosaics and frescoes and terraced gardens. A Merovingian graveyard was discovered near Colombier. In the 11th or 12th century a fortified tower become built over the ruins of the Roman villa. It accelerated within the 13th Century and through the 16th century had reached its present look.

During the Middle Ages, the Seigneurie of Colombier covered the villages of Colombier and Areuse, part of Bole and a third of the Vogtei of Bevaix. They additionally had rights in Fretereules and Val-de-Ruz. The noble Colombier own family have been vassals of the depend of Neuchatel. During the Middle Ages, in addition they obtained, via marriage, the fiefs of Savagnier, Cormondreche and the fief of the Pressoir of Colombeir in Thielle. In 1488 the Colombier lands have been received by using marriage by way of the de Chauvirey family of Franche-Comte. In 1513, they were received by means of Johann Jakob von Watteville of Bern.