Whoever comes to Carpignano Sesia and goes along the carriageable roads of the village can hardly find the castle, since it stands in a corner, just at the mouth of the ancient “Via Biandrina”, a non-asphalted and consequently quite unfrequented road. And yet, over the centuries, the village developed just around this downtown nucleus, better known as quarter of the castle. Its main entrance is in Via Marconi. The first news on the castle date back to the XII century, but the whole complex had existed already for more than a century, as the Romanesque church of St Peter, standing inside and datable to early XI century, witnesses. It was rebuilt many times over its history; it should be noted that it could put up fierce resistance to the assaults of the English soldiers of fortune. They were commanded by the German Sterz in 1362, who was in Monferrato family’s pay against the Visconti family. The Viscontis were just the ones who destroyed the castle together with others in 1364 during a truce of the war. They wanted to prevent them to become strongholds of the Piedmontese. Its last wall belt dates back to 1421, then it was mostly destroyed during the XVII-century wars. The structure of the castle is very irregular, but trends to a circular form: the main street is joined by many secondary cobbled and narrow streets. Most of the buildings come from the 15th and 16th century and some of them were skilfully restored, other, instead, lost the original styles after improper restorations. Along the central way (Via Castello), inside the medieval complex, you can find the cellar housing the monumental weight winepress dated 1575. It is made in 13 metres long elm beam, which was used as weight for pressing grapes, thanks to a vertical screw fixed into a granite block, on its turn, housed in a pit dug out in the earthen floor. It is the most ancient winepress still intact in Piedmont. The other two rooms of the cellar are today used as collectiors of tools of the farmers’ civilization, and specifically, winemaking.