Further documentary evidence is scant until the eighteenth century. In 1788, a French traveller named Villehouson wrote that Kastanitsa "...has four hundred houses." In 1808, an Englishman, Martin Leek, reported that "This was once a city of great note." On 21 July 1821 the inhabitants proclaimed their independence from Turkish rule from atop the old Byzantine tower and joined in the Greek struggle for independence.