Plouay - Circuit from Manehouarn to Scorff by irrigated meadows

The Manehouarn estate is the seat of the ancient seigneury of the de Pluvié family, who settled here as early as the 16th century. The parish bought the site in 1985. Its various buildings include gîtes, apartments, seminar rooms and reception halls. Numerous festive, sporting and cultural events are held here throughout the year. As you make your way through the wooded park, you'll come across, on your right, the 19th century fountain-washhouse complex set on an 18th century fishpond, further on, the 19th and 20th century ponds, the former 19th century kennels, the 1758 recreational chateau, extended after 1840, the Notre Dame de Sion chapel, the former stables and carriage houses in the courtyard, built at the same time as the château. To find out more about the history of the estate, download the “Plouay Five Hundred years of history at Manéhouarn” cultural trail from the Rando Bretagne Sud application.

Formerly the seat of the Marquis de Pontkalleg's high court, Plouay has been known for its dynamic markets and businesses since the Ancien Régime.  It is also the city of cycling. Ever since the first race in 1908, cycling has been a real passion for the inhabitants of Plouay. French Cycling Championships in 1984, Tour de France in 1998 and 2002, World Championships in 2000, European Championships in 2020 etc. The lively Plouay Festival Committee has organized the biggest events. This challenge is taken up every summer at the end of August especially for the men's and women's Grand Prix de Plouay, BMX and Paracycling competitions.

Overlooking Plouay, the recreational chateau, completed in 1758, was built on a manor house dating back to the 16th century. Characteristic with its large symmetrical bays opening onto the park, it is flanked by two side wings and a pediment, added around 1840. The de Pluvié coat of arms “Chevron or on sable, accompanied by three roses of the same colour” can be seen on it. The interiors, with lounges, dining rooms and kitchens on the first floor and bedrooms on the upper floors, were once richly decorated and furnished, reflecting the lifestyle of the nobility. Discover the most illustrious members of the de Pluvié family thanks to the lecterns installed near the gates at the exit to the courtyard.

Here you are in Kerscoulic valley. To your left, in the wetland, was once the pond of the old Manehouarn mill, the last remains of which were destroyed when the large pond was dug at the end of the 19th century. On your right, in the turret, you can see the hydraulic ram that pumped water into a reservoir near the château for the estate's domestic needs. A panel explains how this process, created by Joseph de Montgolfier, works. On either side of the creek, a buried channel was found at the top of the meadows with water reservoirs on the creek. This system of irrigated meadows, watered in winter, warmed the soil and produced abundant, tender grass. They were probably set up by Fortuné de Pluvié, who created a modern farm on the estate, described in detail in an agricultural magazine in 1853.

This wide gravel track is one of the remnants of the old Morbihan railroad network, built by the department between 1885 and 1910. This is the Plouay-Gourin line via Le Faouët, which operated between 1906 and 1947. At 49 km long, it was connected to the Plouay Lorient and Plouay Locminé lines, operational since 1902.  Renowned for its weekly markets and livestock fairs, Plouay played a central role in the Lorient area. The little train nicknamed the “potato train” helped transport agricultural produce from the countryside to the coast. It carried everything: passengers, luggage, dogs, parcels, animals, cars, grain, flour, vegetables, straw, fodder, potatoes, cider apples, beet, wine, vinegar, alcoholic beverages, groceries, foodstuffs, building materials, iron, cast iron, raw materials, various manufactured items, railroad sleepers, mine posts.

On your left, lower down, you can see the Stang Philippe fountain. The origin of its name is unknown, but it already appears as such on Plouay's 1843 Napoleonic land registry. To facilitate access to the water, the spring has been landscaped with a rectangular basin bordered by ashlar. One of these stones is topped by a triangular stone in which a small niche has been carved. The overflow drains through a notch in the stone into the Kerscoulic stream. Once located in the middle of the meadows, before the railway was built, this domestic fountain was intended to serve the local population and their livestock.

The little train revolutionized local travel. In 1916, this line ranked 5th in numbers, with 76,341 passengers. 159,000 passengers also used the Plouay Lorient line, and as many the Plouay Ploërmel line. In 1934, there were 9,358 departures from Plouay station, and in 1937, of all the lines in the department, some of which had already been replaced by buses, the Lorient-Plouay-Gourin line was still the busiest, with 131,000 passengers. They travelled in compartments of 6 to 12 seats, or in 18-seater carriages, alongside cattle carriages and carriages loaded with merchandise. On this line in 1937, 3,202 head of cattle and 9,731 tons of merchandise were transported. It was quite a bucolic ride, as until the 1930s, it took between three and four hours to get from Lorient to Gourin. 

Building the railroad was a major undertaking. After years of negotiation with local authorities and private owners, a vast project was launched, involving a great deal of technical expertise and manpower. In steep valleys, such as those approaching the Scorff, achieving a gentle gradient was a challenge. The rock faces were carved out and used as backfill in the ravines. Here, the valley, several dozen metres deep, has been cut in two by an ashlar structure topped by an embankment to support the railway line. A tunnel was built at the base to allow the free movement of people, livestock and water. Further on, at Pontulaire, the train crossed over the river Scorff on a railway bridge. Its two abutments are still in place. Despite the mammoth construction works, good passenger numbers in the hinterland and even a reduction in journey time to 2 hours from Lorient to Gourin after the switch from steam to self-propelled trains, this was not enough to save the little Morbihan train. With competition from the roads, it declined around 1930 and dismantling began in 1938. A reprieve was granted during the war, when it continued to transport goods, local passengers and occupying troops. In 1947, traffic stopped and the rails were removed. The famous CTM buses of the Compagnie de Transport Morbihannais took over. In 1951, the railbed was given free of charge to the parish of Plouay, which bought the station and its grounds for 150,000 francs. All information on the little train is taken from Yannick Rome's book “Grandes et petites histoires des tramways et des petits trains en Morbihan”.

The river Scorff, 75 km long, rises in Mellionnec in the Côtes d'Armor and joins the river Blavet in the bay of Lorient before finally flowing into the Atlantic Ocean. This natural river, a Natura 2000 site protecting its species and habitats, supplies drinking water to some of the population in the greater Lorient area. A natural boundary between the parishes of Plouay and Berné, it runs through the Pontkalleg Valley, named after the ancient seigneury of Pontkalleg. Comprising two arches, the Pont Neuf was built at the end of the 19th century on the site of an earlier structure. Since the Middle Ages, the Scorff has been exploited for its hydraulic power, with the creation of grain mills. Its name, skorv, is Breton for “sluice gate” or “pond outlet”. Its food resources were also appreciated. Under the Ancien Régime, and again in the 19th century, fisheries were built on this river to catch eels during the autumn downstream migration. Made of stone dikes, they formed a bottleneck where the fishing net was strung. Now in ruins, their remains can be seen at low water. Archaeologist Daniel Tanguy has identified six between Pont Neuf and the Coat Cren mill, and a dozen between Pont Neuf and Poulhibet.

Located in the former forest of the Pontkalleg estate, Pontkalleg national forest covers 543 hectares. Bought by the French government in the 1970s and managed by the Office National des Forêts, it was composed mainly of pedunculate oak and beech. A hunting reserve for the nobility, its high forest and coppice woods were exploited by their owners, notably in the 19th century for charcoal production. In 1973, the forest was divided into 52 parcels of 10 hectares each. The replanted plots, each made up of a single species alternating between conifers and American oaks, were cut back in recent years and replanted with new species. The slopes are dominated by beech forests, a protected Natura 2000 habitat. Along the way, you'll discover beech, oak, birch, holly, mountain ash, wild pear, yew, elder and hawthorn trees. This diverse woodland promotes the development of saplings, brambles and ferns, bluebells, daisies and moss on the floor. It is also a refuge and food store for mammals, birds, molluscs and insects.

In 1281, Jean 1st, Duke of Brittany, created the Pont Caillouc castle estate. Established in Berné, it extended into the surrounding parishes. Jean II added a pond with a dike and a manor house. He also settled peasant farmers in the area. They cleared the forest and built villages and enclosures nearby. Thanks to various archaeological surveys and excavations, six enclosures and six villages containing around sixty buildings and covering an area of around eighteen hectares have been found in what is now the Pontkalleg national forest. One of these villages has been excavated and partially restored, with a guided trail to provide a better understanding of the peasant way of life in the Middle Ages. You can discover it by going up the path on your left.

The mill at Coat Cren, deliberately located on this bend in the river Scorff to create a pond, retains its magnificent ashlar sill, while a fish pass facilitates the free movement of salmon and eels. Its wheel is still used to generate electricity. This mill, already present in the 18th century, was part of the Pontkalleg castle estate. A double turner, i.e. fitted with two wheels, it was modified and raised in the 1950s for flour production. It stopped being used in the 1970’s. Following the sunken path you've just come down, the inhabitants of Berné used to cross the river at the mill to get to Plouay.

On your right, you can see the remains of the irrigated meadows of Coat Cren. Water from the creek was diverted in winter to water the meadows and improve hay production by warming the soil, resulting in an early start to vegetation. The channel, which runs along the slope for over 300 metres, distributes water down small gutters. The Breton name for irrigated meadows, flourenn evokes the sweetness of hay cut early in spring. There could be two cuts before the cattle came to graze. An illustrated lectern helps you understand how they worked.

Fed by springs on the heights of Kerlucas, Lézot and Kerguescamff, the Moulin de Kersily stream takes its name from the mill of the former seigneury located a little higher up. Three small reservoirs, two of them well upstream of the mill, were used to turn the wheel on this modest stream nestling in a small, steep-sided valley. The surrounding woods and ancient meadows are home to characteristic flora and fauna, as well as protected species such as the Quimper snail, which thrives in the thick litter of this dark, damp environment. Named when a naturalist observed it near Quimper in 1817, the Hélix quimperiana is easily recognized by its flat, translucent shell, allowing its body to be seen.

Many have been converted, others preserved, in particular a complex with a priest's house and its farm. The first, accessed by an outside staircase to the upstairs living room, dates from 1657 and features a carved chalice on the door. The second, just as neat, is flanked at the rear by a tower housing a spiral staircase. This important locality, which has expanded along the main road since the 1950s, included over twenty buildings and five bread ovens in 1843. Divided into four large groups around courtyards, they would have housed a dozen farms surrounded by yards, farmland on the plateau, and moorland and meadows in the lowlands. The wells and fountain at Kerscoulic, 500 metres below, provided water for the villagers.

Cross the Kerscoulic stream once again, fed a little further on by a stream from Questenen Plaine, then by the Stang Philippe fountain. Passing through Manehouarn and its large pond, filled by other sources on the estate, it joins the Rohic stream to merge with the Pont-Nivino, and Crano streams, also known as Saint-Sauveur, a tributary of the river Scorff. It’s important to preserve the multitude of watercourses that make up the richness of our land, vital for our water needs.

The Plouay cross was moved, and then stored in the Technical Services Department, until it was reinstated at the end of 2024 in its original location as shown on the 1843 Napoleonic cadastre. The uncut granite base and the monolithic cross, with its irregular, asymmetrical shapes and no ornamentation, attest to the age of this monument, which was probably built in the early Middle Ages, between the 12th and 15th centuries, to mark a significant event or to announce arrival in the town of Plouay.  A second square hole in the base signals that this was a double cross, fairly common in the Morbihan. The second cross has long since disappeared. In the first half of the 20th century, the inhabitants of Plouay from the surrounding villages would pass by on their way to school and say a prayer. They only ever knew the monument in this form.

Coët Fao wood that you've just passed through was once part of the Manehouarn estate. This beech wood, as its Breton name suggests, is home not only to Breton forest species, but also to pine trees, descendants of the plantations planted here by the de Pluvié family. This pine forest covered almost 20 hectares in 1843. The species, introduced to Brittany in the 17th century, saw its production intensify in the 19th century with the manufacture of posts for English coalmines, exported from the port of Lorient. Cut rapidly every 25 years, they offered landowners a good return. The de Pluvié family also owned a sawmill near their mill in Rue Neuve.

Bordered by the old railroad line, the village of Coët Fao is relatively recent. Its houses were built by the de Pluvié family. In 1843, it included a set of buildings with courtyards and farmland called new parcels, or park nevez in Breton. Called Métairie Neuve at the time, it replaced the noble métairie de la Porte, formerly located near the manor house and removed to allow the estate to be redeveloped in the late 18th and 19th centuries.

Plouay is known for its lively markets and shops, and has been an active market centre since the 13th century. Don't miss the opportunity to stroll through its streets. The church of Saint-Ouen, built in the 15th century, has three altarpieces; the first one in tufa stone and marble, built during the reconstruction of the choir in 1717, the other two in tufa stone, decorate the sides of the choir, dedicated to the Virgin and the Sacred Heart. Plouay was also the seat of the high justice of the Lordship of Pontkalleg, located in Berné. At the corner of the Place de l'Eglise and the Rue de Bécherel, admire the oldest house in the village, dating from 1594. To its right, under the Ancien Régime, stood the prison and the market hall; the latter housed a courtroom on the upper floor where judgments were handed down every Monday—market day. Punishments ranged from the pillory to imprisonment and, in the most serious cases, the death penalty. Executions took place just outside Plouay on a rise known as Lann Justice, the site of the Lordship’s justice pillars and gallows.