Colombier () is a former municipality in the Boudry District in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. The municipalities of Auvernier, Bôle and Colombier merged on 1 January 2013 into the new municipality of Milvignes. History Colombier is first mentioned in 1228 as Columbier. Four lakeside settlements from the neolithic and the Bronze Age have been discovered in Colombier. One of the largest Roman era villas in Switzerland was excavated from under the castle in 1840–42 by Frédéric Dubois de Montperreux. It was built in multiple stages between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD into a palatial mansion with a peristyle, at least two baths with mosaics and frescoes and terraced gardens. A Merovingian graveyard was found near Colombier. In the 11th or 12th century a fortified tower was built over the ruins of the Roman villa. It expanded in the 13th century and by the 16th century had reached its present appearance. During the Middle Ages, the Seigneurie of Colombier included the villages of Colombier and Areuse, a part of Bôle and a third of the Vogtei of Bevaix. They also had rights in Fretereules and Val-de-Ruz. The noble Colombier family were vassals of the count of Neuchâtel. During the Middle Ages, they also acquired, by marriage, the fiefs of Savagnier, Cormondrèche and the fief of the Pressoir of Colombeir in Thielle. In 1488 the Colombier lands were acquired by marriage by the de Chauvirey family of Franche-Comté. In 1513, they were acquired by Johann Jakob von Watteville of Bern. Under von Watteville, the territory expanded further into Bevaix. In 1564, the land was purchased by the Counts of Neuchâtel, for 60,000 crowns. Under Johann Jakob von Watteville, the Protestant Reformation was successfully introduced in town. When portions of the Armée de l'Est were interred in Colombier in 1871, the Catholic mass began to be read once again in the church. The boundaries of the village are first documented in 1346. In 1357 it received, along with Bôle and Areuse, a forest which the three municipalities jointly managed until the 18th Century. During the 16th and 17th centuries, much of the population was exempted from many of the feudal taxes and fees that they had paid to their feudal overlords. The last feudal tax, however, was finally abolished in the 19th century. In the middle of the 17th century, the town was saved from bankruptcy through a loan given