Caudan's green belt by Kergoff

Largely destroyed during the 1939-1945 war, the town of Caudan has retained only a few pre-war buildings. Its religious architecture suffered greatly. Erected in 1708 and rebuilt in 1768, the chapel of la Vrai Croix (True Cross), at the southern edge of the village, was sold to a private individual and demolished in February 1912.  For revenge, the Germans blew up the church Saint-Pierre Saint-Paul on 11th August 1944. It was rebuilt after the construction of the town hall in 1962 by the architects Yves Guillou and Paul Lindu from Vannes. The old place of worship had been rebuilt in 1722 on a church that was already in ruins in 1710, then after the Revolution around 1805. Built by the inhabitants of Caudan, without an architect using the remains of the chapels of Pendreff and Saint-Séverin, it needed major repair work around 1898. Once located to the north of the church, the presbytery was enlarged and rebuilt in 1866 in the neo-classical style. It was razed to the ground in 1975 and replaced by the current one. The perimeter of the church is protected as a Historical Monument in connection with the cross of the village of Scouhel, erected in 1504 to mark the end of an epidemic of the plague. Already moved to the west of the church before the war, the cross was damaged in 1944. It was restored and relocated here in November 1965. On it can be seen a Virgin and Child, the coat of arms of the de Chefdubois family and, on the west side of the base, Christ of the Resurrection next to its donor.

The Saint-Marc fountain, hidden in the wooded valley of Pont Youann, is very old. In the past, Rogation Days were held every year on 25th April, the feast of St. Mark, to obtain the blessing of the harvest and to ask for water for the crops. This fountain was restored in 1981 by Pierre Ropers, a former stonemason, who died in 1983, and by the inhabitants of the area, members of the Pont-Youan Restendrezen association.  This association aims to promote good neighbourly relations and contribute to the quality of the environment of these two neighbourhoods built in the 1980s. Every year, volunteers organize meetings, wood cleaning, meals, neighbourhood parties, to revive the rural conviviality of yesteryear. Further down, the association has also placed plaques near the trees in memory of deceased members.

Caudan is rural and one of the oldest parishes in the Dioceses of Vannes. Before some of its territory was handed over to Saint-Caradec Hennebont, it was also one of the largest. In 1909, it also lost its southern part when the municipality of Lanester was created. Bordered by the Blavet and Scorff estuaries, this area close to Lorient, was urbanized after the shipyards of the Compagnie des Indes de Lorient were set up around 1703 on the right bank of the Scorff. Its many workers increased the population of Caudan from 3,242 in 1793 to 9,646 in 1906, falling back to 2,487 in 1911 after the separation of the town of Lanester from that of Caudan. In 1818, the village of Caudan comprised about forty buildings built along the roads leading in a star shape to the vast church square. It did not change much until after the war. The National road RN165 passes through the south of the town, where an industrial and commercial zone grew up, close to the urban centre of Lorient Lanester. Caudan experienced strong demographic growth, especially between 1968 and 1990, multiplying its population by 2.5 in the space of forty years, approaching 7,000 inhabitants today. New populations come with the construction of areas that extended first to the south and then to the west along the traffic routes. The total housing stock has quadrupled since 1970. Residential districts, consisting of detached houses with gardens emerged, surrounding the villages closest to the town. Here, Restendrezen preserves an old sunken path and stone buildings, the remains of an old farmhouse.

Rising north of Caudan towards Saint-Séverin, the Le Plessis stream, also known locally as Kergoff stream, owes its name to the former seigniory of Le Plessis and its tidal mill located in Lanester not far from the port area of Le Rohu. Flowing upstream from the village through meadows and copses, then through a deep wooded valley, the stream flows into the industrial estate of Kerpont to the south and feeds the Goden marsh before flowing into the Blavet.

The rapid growth of population was accompanied by the construction of buildings for schools, sports halls... In this area, following the gentle path of the stream, we pass by the water treatment plant, the Technical Services and the swimming pool. Commissioned in 2001, the Kerflem activated sludge treatment plant has a treatment capacity for 5,400 inhabitants. Its purified waters flow into Le Plessis stream.  The Technical Services house equipment and workshops. A team of about ten people works to clean and maintain the green spaces, public buildings, etc. The indoor swimming pool in Caudan receives almost 8,000 visitors every year, half of whom are from Caudan, and the rest residents and schoolchildren from the surrounding communes. As well as swimming lessons, various activities are available, including aquagym, aquabike, senior fitness...

Dug in 1972 in a damp wooded area, the Kergoff ornamental lake, fed by the Le Plessis stream, was drained in September 2018. Like many bodies of water, it suffered from silting and warming of its waters, which in the summer months caused green algae blooms on the surface, hindering the migration and reproduction of salmon, trout and eels. The emptying of the lake, destruction of the dyke and its replacement by a rigid-framed bridge, restored ecological continuity and promoted the fauna and flora on the banks. The works also restored this wetland to its natural function of regulating the water cycle, storing rainwater in winter, limiting flooding, and releasing it during dry periods. Acting like a natural filter, the soil and plants that grew back here help to improve the quality of the water by eliminating pollution. The wetlands have been inventoried and are now protected. In Caudan, they make up 362 ha, or 8.5% of its surface area. This walking area, popular with the inhabitants of Caudan, has also been restored with paths accessible to People of Reduced Mobility, a wooden footbridge between the two banks, a playground and equipment along the banks. There is a landscaped rainwater retention basin with a pier for visitors to stroll it along while observing the biodiversity of this fledgling pond.

Climbing up the slope of the small valley of the Le Plessis stream, passing through Kergoff woods of douglas fir, oak and chestnut trees, one can see on the heights the buildings of the care home Ti Aïeul which sits on the site of the village of Kergoff. This place used to be one of the 24 seigneuries identified in Caudan under the Ancien Régime. Only two manor houses remain today in Keraud and Kerguen, to bear witness to these noble places, which fell under the major seigniory of Kemenet-Héboé during the Middle Ages and were attached to the justice of the Hennebont Seneschausée (court) under the Ancien Régime.  The Napoleonic land registry of 1818 shows the plans of the Château de Kergoff organised in a U-shape around a courtyard, with a central square building and outbuildings on either side. Access was to the south by a path coming from the village, offering a view of the castle's façade. A wall dividing the courtyard in two set the private quarters aprt from the agricultural part. Already a hospice prior to the war, it was burned down by the Germans in 1944. Nothing remains, except for the bread oven visible on maps of the time, and a lime tree more than a hundred years old.

Connected to the town, to Kergoff and to the swimming pool by gentle paths, the Kergoff sports complex has grown over the years to offer the inhabitants of Caudan activities for all tastes and generations: football pitches and a multisports hall, a covered bowling alley and boules area, a skate park, pumptrack, fitness trail, playgrounds. The Joseph Le Ravallec community hall hosts weddings, events and shows. The highly popular New Year's Eve Fest Noz, organised by Tarzh An Deiz, takes place here, and in the spring, the Vannes final of one of the most important events in Breton culture, the Kan Ar Bobl. To stimulate continuity and creativity in the Breton repertoire, "Le Chant du Peuple", born in 1973, is a music competition in Breton and Gallo by category: school songs, nursery rhymes and chants, solo instruments, groups and duets, accompanied songs, to be listened to and danced to.

Below the residential areas, this path is ideal for walking. Left abandoned for many years, the former wetlands along the Le Plessis stream have given way to damp woods where specific vegetation has developed; mainly willows under which brambles, ferns, sedges and umbelliferous plants grow wild. Local associations, especially the Caudan Environmental Defence Association, have been working for about forty years to rehabilitate these wastelands, creating and marking out hiking trails and organizing clean-ups on the banks of the stream. It was also on their initiative that the Kerio spring, which once fed a washhouse destroyed in the 1990s, was restored in 2016 and 2017. With the help of Technical Services, volunteers cleared the spring buried under vegetation and built a dry stone basin.

Slightly less wooded than its neighbouring communes, Caudan has nearly 680 ha of forest, or nearly 16% of its surface, mainly on the slopes of natural valleys such as here. The Bois de Kerio belongs to the Departmental Council, with an area of 6.9 hectares, and has been listed as a classified woodland and "natural area of regional interest for mammals". Managed by the Office National des Forêts, it is characteristic of the natural forest of Brittany, dominated by beech, oak and chestnut trees, under which holly and a vegetation of ferns and honeysuckle grow. The eastern part, which still comprised fields and meadows in the 1960s, reveals the former broom and gorse moors on the sparse heights.

In an underground tunnel dug into the hillside by the Germans during the Second World War, the wooded area on your right houses a wintering site for bats. Two species of bat, the horseshoe bat and the greater mouse-eared bat, hibernate there every year. These species, which are now protected, have declined since the 1960s due to the destruction of hedges, the use of pesticides, roof treatments and disturbance caused near resting sites. Considered as one of the most interesting sites in the Lorient area, the Kerio site has a grid to prevent access while leaving a passage for these flying mammals. A Breton legend tells of a swallow who was in love with a mouse and entrusted it with her eggs. From this brood was born a bat with the body and head of a mouse, the wings of a swallow and big ears like those of the devil. Thus appeared al logod-penn-dall, the “mouse with a blind head” in Breton, whose descendants were condemned never to see the sun and to live by night.

The organization of the village of Kerio has changed little in the last two hundred years. It is crossed by a main road linking it in the west to the old road to Plouay, and in the east to neighbouring fields and villages. The number of constructions has remained stable, but new houses were built at the end of the 19th century and in the 1980s. On the left is an alignment of three houses, one of which dates from the 16th century, still has inclines carved with a head. A well with pedestals and lintels and a lean-to are a reminder that the hamlet once consisted of at least four farms. On the other hand, the bread oven built at the eastern exit of the village was destroyed. To the north of the hamlet a market gardening activity with large greenhouses has developed. In recent years, Caudan has seen an increase in the number of farms selling vegetables, meat and dairy products directly and through short distribution channels. Smaller in size, favouring sustainable and organic agriculture, they correspond to environmental expectations and current consumption patterns. The interest in old varieties has even brought the "Rouge de Caudan" potato out of oblivion.

Completing the urbanization of of Caudan in its north-eastern part, the district of Lenn Sec'h, is being built close to the main roads, a stone's throw from the Kerio commercial centre and the town. Combining individual and collective housing, it includes quality projects such as the biodiversity pond created on the wetland below the buildings. This belies the name of the place, Lenn Sec'h, “dry pond” in Breton. Eventually, half of the area of this district will be made up of green spaces reserved for leisurely travel and relaxation. Prior to the development, some thirty hectares between Kerio and the town were subject to an archaeological diagnosis in 2012-2013: 365 trenches three metres wide, from 18 to 50 metres long and 40 to 60 cm deep were dug. This dig uncovered two pits for extracting building materials dating from the Neolithic period. Most importantly, it revealed a vast Bronze Age living site, located on the hillside protected from the prevailing winds, facing south and at the crossing of a network of streams. In 15 ha of enclosures marked by ditches and palisades, the diggers found several dwellings and silos in 1.5 ha, cattle pens and cultivated areas. This size of occupation, no doubt changing during this period between 2200 and 800 BCE, is almost unheard of in Brittany and the west of France, since it is not a farm, but a village. The site was still occupied during the Iron Age, as indicated by a quadrangular building on posts, and especially in the High Middle Ages. The excavation revealed two inhabited enclosures of 7,700 m² and 4,500 m² associated with the ceramic objects of the 8th century. Traces of recent occupation were also detected, confirming that this area, in the process of being redeveloped, attracted various civilizations because of its attractive location.

Caudan paid a heavy price in the 1939-1945 war during the German occupation: requisition of buildings, food and livestock, installation of naval artillery and searchlights in several villages, establishment of a German submarine camp in Kersalo, a hospital in Kério, reception of the national gendarmeries, firemen, 2,000 refugees, etc. From 1943 onwards, it also became a place of combat between the Germans and Resistance fighters, particularly the Caudan front, recruiting and training young people in hiding and supplied by farmers. Aerial bombardments set several hamlets on fire. Roundups, arrests and executions bear witness to the tensions and violence suffered by the population. The Germans destroyed many buildings before retreating to the Lorient pocket, from where they bombed the town on the night of 7 to 8 August 1944. They only surrendered on May 10, 1945. On your left, the Menhir of Surrender recalls that here, two days after the end of the Second World War, the commander of the German troops in Lorient surrendered his arms to the commanders of the American armies and the French Home Office. It is not obvious that the rue du 10 mai 1945 was once lined with embankments leading down to a fountain, now lost in the vegetation, and to a washhouse on the stream. The site is immortalized in a postcard, showing the washerwomen in the foreground around an irregular basin with a few inclined stones for washing, and in the background, country women leading their cows to the field and, in the far background, the bell tower of the old church.