Pendreff Alignement

Trip No.203  Entry No.466  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Stone Row / Alignment Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 5 Access 4

Log Text: The Kerfland menhirs are three gorgeous tall slender menhirs standing in a row at the edge of a wood, easily reached down a little signposted footpath from the roadside a couple of kilometres south of Plomeur. They line up almost due north to south, at an alignment of 005° magnetic (in 2005) and are spaced about 5 metres apart from each other.

To me, these are the supermodels of the menhir world, each being over 5 metres tall yet only 30cm thick, and up to 2 m wide, and are very elegantly shaped into curvy features. The southern one is sort of pointing skywards. Unfortunately the central stone has obviously been broken in the past, but is cemented back together in a very reasonable way. It is just a pity that they are a bit overgrown, making pictures difficult, but not too badly.

Dolmen de Penquer-Bloas

Trip No.203  Entry No.468  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 2 Access 4

Log Text: Although I have seen this described as an allée couverte, it looks to me to be a simple dolmen still mostly within its mound. It is unsure what this monument was originally. It's in a little woodland area, beside the road by an industrial stoneworking site. It suffers badly from neglect, and has lots of rubbish strewn around.

Allée Couverte de Menez Landu

Trip No.203  Entry No.467  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Passage Grave Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 2 Access 5

Log Text: This looks like a straightforward simple dolmen beside the busy D.785, a kilometre or so southwest of Plomeur. It has a single capstone on top of two side stones, and a large backstone, but it is almost lost within the undergrowth. But it looked a bit to me as if it is the possibly the end of an allée couverte with an end cell, or some other type of passage grave like there are around here.

Tronval Dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.463  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: The Tronval dolmen is found just a hundred metres walk from the Quélarn dolmens parking area, on the opposite side of the road. There are the remains of what appears to be another pair of chambers, this time only a few metres apart. The southwestern one is completely collapsed, while the northwestern has a fallen capstone resting on two sideslabs, with perhaps an entrance passage, and two slabs jutting out sideways. Perhaps these are facing slabs to the front of the cairn ? The ruined chamber also has these side slabs which seem to be a feature round here.

I later found out that these are remains of a type of monument only found in this coastal part of southwest Brittany, and are compartmented dolmens, which had chambers with internal compartment slabs to break up the chamber into sections.

Dolmen de Menez-Veil

Trip No.203  Entry No.459  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 2 Access 5

Log Text: The Rue Jules Ferry dolmen is a strange one. There's a little capstone sitting at a funnyangle on three support stones, on top of a stone mound, which is sort of walled in and held together by stone slabs around the outside. I can only assume that it's all been very rearranged at some point. It can be found right by the roadside near a roundabout at the entrance to the village of Lesconil, on a little tended grassy area. It looks like it might be somebodies garden.

Quélarn menhir

Trip No.203  Entry No.465  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: Just to the south of the Quélarn burial cairns is a small menhir, about 2.5 metres tall. It is assumed that the two are related. These have been dated to the middle neolithic.

Menhir des Droits de l'Homme

Trip No.203  Entry No.473  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: This is a large menhir erected here in 1840 to commemorate the shipwreck of the "Droits de l'Homme" in 1797 with the loss of around 600 lives. The stone used was once a real menhir moved to here from elsewhere. It's at the edge of a car park besides this phenomenal beach, with the surf pounding in all around, creating its own fog !

Penhors stèle

Trip No.203  Entry No.471  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: This is a fantastic grooved and sculpted (cannelée) iron age stèle I saw in a front garden of a home I was passing at Penhors. It is almost perfectly shaped, round with grooves running up the sides, and tapered towards the top, which is a good 4 metres above the ground. This superb stèle was found fallen in a nearby hedge and re-erected in the garden. The granite from which it is made has originally come from at least 5 kilometres away.

Quélarn Dolmens

Trip No.203  Entry No.464  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: The Quélarn dolmens are fairly easily found as they are signposted a couple of kilometres to the west of Plobannalec, and they have their own little parking space and picnic area. Although mostly destroyed in the middle ages when it was used as a quarry, this massive site has been excavated and restored, and got an explanatory noticeboard. These have been dated to the middle neolithic.

These are a type of monument only found in this coastal part of southwest Brittany, and are compartmented dolmens, which had massive chambers with internal compartment slabs to break up the chamber into sections, and to hold up the roof. This was all once a massive monument in a 50 metre long mound, running east to west, with six of the compartmented chambers within it, all facing to the south, as opposed to the other two I have seen previously. The basic layout of the structure can be seen, but only the large side slabs remain, making a sort of ground plan. Only one capstone remains in place for the whole thing. Some of the chambers would have been massive. The largest one at the west measures about 10 metres by 8 metres rectangular, and is more like a 9 roomed house than a burial chamber !

It is nice to see it all kept clear of undergrowth and presented like this, but the mechanical clearance cutters used are damaging the stones, many of which have been scraped and cracked by the cutters.

Kerfuens Dolmens

Trip No.203  Entry No.462  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: Just a few hundred metres to the west of the sports centre can be found the remains of two more little dolmens sat inside small mounds, which are kept in a little cleared area for all to see.

As for the Kervadol dolmens, they are about ten metres from each other in an east to west sense, but open to face the north. The western one is in quite good condition, the eastern not so. The chambers are about 2 metres long, and 1 metre wide, with side slabs and around them what looks like a cairn of stones held in place with side slabs. Again, it is hard to tell whether these would have been in separate mounds, or one big one. I feel it is probably one mound with two additional parts.

I later found out that these are remains of a type of monument only found in this coastal part of southwest Brittany, and are compartmented dolmens, which had chambers with internal compartment slabs to break up the chamber into sections.

Corn-ar-Palud

Trip No.203  Entry No.472  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Chambered Cairn Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: Beside the little road running along the coast around the almost deserted centre of Audierne Bay, just on the edge of the beach in the dunes, can be found the remains of a cairn with a few large rocks to be seen scattered around in it. Looking closer at some of these larger rocks, there is evidence of a chamber underneath one capstone. Obviously once upon a time this was a fairly complex place, probably a cairn with several dolmenic chambers within it, similar to many other places in this far southwestern tip of Brittany.

This really is a splendid place, with the surf rolling in creating its own mist and covering the land in clouds. Amazing.

Pors Poulhan allée couverte

Trip No.203  Entry No.474  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Passage Grave Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: On a headland overlooking the Baie D'Audierne, this allée couverte is in a tremendous position. The 12 metre long passage is quite large and wide at almost 2 metres in width, and almost as high, and lines up to the east at 100°.

Built before the year 3000BC, it has been used almost continually for one purpose or another until the present day. Excavations have shown it to have not only been constructed and used by neolithic flint workers, but also for burials in the bronze age, iron age, and by the Gallo-Romans. In the middle ages it was used as a quarry for building stone, and since then it has been used as a military look out post, and as such was blown up during the second world war.

Restoration was made in about 1990, with it now in a nicely kept little grassy area with benches and an information board. Two capstones are in place, as is a lot of floor paving, but the unusual thing for around here is that it still has many of the stones from its surrounding peristalith. This is a nice place to sit and ponder.

Presqu'île de la Torche

Trip No.203  Entry No.470  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Passage Grave Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 5 Access 4

Log Text: The remains of what would no doubt have once been a magnificent monument, positioned on top of this little, almost an island, headland, sticking dramatically out into the wild Atlantic Ocean, and surrounded by magnificent surf beaches.

The central passage is still 16 metres in length, running up and over the top of the mound, curving as it goes, and opening to the east. At the west end there is an upright end stone. On the top of the mound, a few metres in from the end stone, are two side chambers each about 3 metres by 1.5 metres, one of which still has capstones in place, although it is all much ruined. Considering the concrete all around, for wartime bunkers and lookout posts, and for tourist paths and observation tables, it is surprising anything has survived here - that so much has is incredible. There is possible some remnants of a second chamber up here too.

The most wonderful thing about this place is the situation. The surf is crashing in all around the end of the point, and the waves rolling by on both sides of the headland in this surfers paradise. Its a fantastic place to sit and watch the waves go by. I love it. It makes me want to go surfing again. I bet I could still do it. They are even playing Camel's "Snow Goose" in the bar at the car park. Now if that isn't meaningful......

Kervignon Dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.460  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: This little dolmen, with a capstone sitting on three side slabs is to be found round the back of the local sports centre. The capstone is nicely rain worn on the top, and sits at a jaunty angle. It perhaps once had an entry corridor as the side stones are smaller at one end, and I believe that this is in fact the remains of what was once a compartmented dolmen, with much of the rest of it destroyed.

Kerugou dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.469  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: Kerugou dolmen is an interesting one, which can be found just inside a field beside a small road and signposted. It has a large compartmented chamber at the back, western end, with a long central passageway opening up to the east, at orientation 097°. The central passage is about 9 metres long and up to 2m in width away from the entrance. The two side chambers align along the back wall, and are each 3m by 2.5m, with some massive side slabs. Unfortunately, there is only one capstone still in place, and that is on the entrance passageway, but it's a nice monument to discover. Much of its mound is still in place.

Kervadol Dolmens

Trip No.203  Entry No.461  Date Added: 25th May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: This is the remains of two little dolmens about 10 metres away from each other, not far from the sports fields. I could not be sure as to whether they were once in different mounds, or if they would have both been in the same one. Both have similar chambers, with a capstone sitting on a couple of side stones each side, and facing south.

The eastern of the two is in much better condition, and the capstone is in its proper position. That on the western dolmen has fallen to one side. Both of these dolmens have a strange feature which is a large square slab lined hollow beside them on the eastern side, or perhaps on both sides. Would these have been side chambers ? There is no sign of any capstones, and any entrance would have had to have been round the back. It's all very odd. These slabs are perhaps a bit like the stones around the Lesconil dolmen, except that the mound is outside of these rather than on the inside.

I later found out that these are remains of a type of monument only found in this coastal part of southwest Brittany, and are compartmented dolmens, which had chambers with internal compartment slabs to break up the chamber into sections.

Bellevue Menhir

Trip No.203  Entry No.451  Date Added: 23rd May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Bretagne:Finistère (29))
Visited: Yes on 16th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 2 Access 5

Log Text: Bellevue menhir near to the town of Moëlan-sur-Mer is more than 4 metres tall, right beside the old Roman road to the south of the town centre. I found it difficult to park nearby and get a reasonable picture in between dodging all the traffic on this busy road.

Goërem Dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.445  Date Added: 23rd May 2020
Site Type: Chambered Tomb Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 16th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: I came all the way out to this poor depressed village at the end of a long peninsula and stayed the night on the harbourside in order to visit this, "the finest angled passage grave in existance". Take a good torch it says. So on a nasty dull grey day I walk round the seafront and through the village till I eventually find it. It is right on the western seafront, in amongst the houses, and has a reasonable amount of land reserved around it. It would probably have a spectacular view if there was one to be seen through all the murk.

Its not a very big mound, just a big enough barrow to cover the passage grave, which is about 20 metres by 10 metres, and up to 3 metres in height maximum, perhaps more originally as the modern ground level is probably higher than it was, particularly with the sea wall here. The entrance is on the south side, but it's gated up, with an iron gate concreted in to the ground, so despite having two torches, I cannot enter and put them to use. But I have to say, that it's no doubt for the best, as the place is littered with broken bottles and other rubbish, with graffitti sprayed everywhere, and badly smelling of a toilet block. This poor little town is clearly suffering from a lack of jobs and investment, and seems to have a bit of a problem with bored youth compared to much of the rest of France. Its a great shame, as I was really looking forward to seeing this place properly. I would like to think that the excellent state of the internal structure is still as it was a few years ago, and that the engraved pillars of the passageway are still in good condition.

Menhir de Courégant

Trip No.203  Entry No.448  Date Added: 23rd May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 16th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 2 Access 2

Log Text: Courégant menhir is 5 metres tall, and can be found just outside the back of a holiday homes complex. There is no obvious path through to it, but some people in one of the chalets let me take a picture from their decking ! Thanks to them !

Menhir de Kerroc'h (Ploemeur)

Trip No.203  Entry No.447  Date Added: 23rd May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 16th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Kerroc’h menhir is a small menhir, only about 1.7 metres tall, that initially looks impossible to get to through the gorse. However, there is a footpath to it from beside the houses, and it comes complete with a little sign.