Bubry - Around the town

From the end of the Middle Ages, villages started to emerge with the gradual setting up of traffic routes. These routes linked the villages to the fountains, fields, manor, town, and created links between villages.  The pathways were created by peasants who dug a trench and used the soil and stones to build the embankments, comprised of dry stones. Planted with trees, they took on their name of sunken paths, as they were eroded over time and dug out by the rains.

Built in 1737, St. Hélène's chapel was in very poor condition after the French Revolution and was partially repaired in 1810 before being completely rebuilt in 1839. With a Latin cross floor plan, built of granite with ashlar and rubble stone, it features a distinctive west portal framed by two buttresses and topped by a bell tower which can be accessed by an external staircase. Inside, the furnishings date mainly from the second half of the 19th century, in particular the choir screen, the two altars and the statuary, mainly in polychrome plaster. In addition to several Virgins with Child, there are three representations of the patron saint, two of which date from the 18th century. The most recent is displayed in a niche in the upper part of the apse wall. The oldest once stood above the fountain.  Sainte-Hélène’s fountain nearby is topped by a niche and a cross framed by two pinnacles. Its paved enclosure, surrounded by low walls with stone benches, is accessible by steps and, on the chapel side, by a stile, the upright stone that once barred access to roaming animals. Water from the fountain flows into a small circular basin, then into a rectangular one, before feeding the washhouse below. A second washhouse to the west completes the ensemble. Washerwomen used to gather here to wash their clothes, as old postcards show. The pardon on the 4th Sunday in July consists of a church service and a friendly gathering. As you leave the site, you'll see a cross on your right, that once stood next to the church and was moved here during urbanization work. On your left is the former Sainte-Hélène school, now converted into housing.

This former private property and its walled park once belonged to Monsieur Caudan, a notary in Bubry from 1884 to 1905. Bought by the town council, the site has retained its paths and century-old trees. The vast five-bay residence however was in poor condition and was demolished. Only its old façade cleverly hides the modern buildings housing Bubry's youth centre.

Take a moment to rest in the garden and listen to the history of the presbytery. It was built in the first quarter of the 18th century, as can be seen by the date 1702 engraved on the central dormer. Rectangular, in rendered rubble stone and granite ashlar, the building comprises a central section and two side wings with seven bays, topped by three dormer windows. The central door opens onto a corridor leading to two large rooms on the ground floor and a beautiful central stone staircase leading to the first floor.  The numerous rooms were used by the rector, his vicar and their servants. Some will remember their catechism sessions in the vast but very cold ground-floor room, where a Christmas tree with a large candle at its base was the only decoration. Partly restored, the building is still occupied by the parish priest of Bubry. The presbytery, surrounded by high walls, still has its former gardens to the east. Divided in the 19th century into six rectangular plots separated by paths, the "priest’s garden", consisting of a vegetable garden and an orchard, ensured that the priest and his entourage were self-sufficient. In the courtyard in front of the house, the stable, the cowshed, the cart shed and a beautifully constructed well, completed the ensemble. Today it houses the canteen and media library. Residents still remember the priests who lived here, such as the Abbé Audo, who wrote a book entitled “Histoire du Vieux Bubry” in 1981. But not many know that in 1833 and 1834, Hélène Jégado, Brittany's best-known poisoner and one of history's greatest serial killers, worked here. Over an 18-year period in the mid-19th century, she poisoned some sixty people. She was tried in Rennes in 1851 and executed on 26th February 1852. She used herbs and poisons that the trial judges found difficult to identify. Her victims suffered from colic and vomiting, sometimes fatal, after drinking her herbal teas and soups. Hélène Jégado, first worked at the Guern presbytery where seven people died during her time there. She then entered the service of the Bubry parish priest M. Lorho in 1833 as a cook. She joined her aunt Marie-Jeanne Liscoët, who was also a cook. During her time in Bubry, five people fell ill and three died: Jeanne-Marie Lorho, sister of the parish priest, Jeanne-Marie Kerfontain, niece of the parish priest, and Marie-Jeanne Liscoët, his aunt. She claimed a fourth victim in June 1836, in the person of Mr. Keraly. He was convalescing in his château in Kernivinen, and his daughters hired Hélène Jégado in Pontivy to look after him. After her arrival, his condition worsened. In June, he returned to his home in Hennebont, where he died.

This circular basin in the middle of the square, with its Breton name “plomen”, was once supplied with water by a pipe running down from the Sainte-Hélène fountain. It supplied water to the town's inhabitants. Abbé Audo recounts that it was later used as a drinking trough for animals from the local farms, but the local population probably preferred more modern facilities such as the “Idéale” hand pump, still visible to your left in front of the house at number 1. The former rector recalls: “The faulty pipe no longer brought the water; so it was used as a stand for the town crier who made his announcements there after mass”.  It wasn't until 1965-1970 that Bubry got its own water catchment from the Kerpicaut groundwater, and a brand-new pumping station in the 2000s. Today, drinking water is managed by Lorient Agglomération. Bubry is supplied by Kerpicaut, which has been protected since 1994, and Manébail in Plouay. The remainder comes from water companies in Hennebont-Port-Louis, Baud and Ellé. 

Up until the French Revolution, the village had two churches, Notre-Dame des Neiges and Sainte-Véronique. Now in ruins, their stones were used to build the new Saint-Paul Saint-Pierre church between 1804 and 1806. The date 1804 was engraved on a cornice stone on the baptismal font to the north, on the south wall of the nave and on the coat of arms in the secondary porch to the south.  With a Latin cross plan and granite ashlars, a south porch was added in 1814 and a bell tower-porch dominating the town with its neo-Gothic spire was added in 1895. The bell tower was showing signs of weakness by 1864, so the bells were housed in a hut near the sacristy until a new bell tower was built. The walled complex, accessible from the west via two staircases, housed the cemetery, a calvary and an ossuary to the south-west. This was destroyed when the cemetery was moved to the west of the village at the end of the 19th century. Inside, the building still has its furniture from the 19th century, with the exception of two wooden reliquaries which are from the 18th century. Only the two wooden statues of St. Peter and St. Paul appear to be contemporary with the church's reconstruction in 1804. The nine stained glass windows were created by the Gesta workshop in Toulouse in the last quarter of the 19th century. As you walk around the building, don't miss the sculpted base stones of the south and north ramps on either side of the bell tower, and to the south, the war memorial, in memory of the victims of the wars of the 20th siècle. Near the sacristy, you can also see a Gallic stele dating from the 6th to 5th centuries BC. Once a sign of a cremation cemetery, it was relocated to near the church and Christianized. Both sides are decorated with crosses pattées and the flattened top features nine cupules. It came with another hemispherical stele that disappeared when the cemetery was reorganized.

 Houses in the town of Bubry sprang up gradually along the traffic routes, and converged in star formation at its centre. Around 1850, there were hardly one hundred, mainly concentrated around the church. Construction accelerated at the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century; so-called ternary houses, i.e. with two storeys, a central staircase and a room to either side, very much in fashion at the time. Other buildings were similar: symmetrical, with one door and two windows on the ground floor, and three on the first floor. They were light and spacious. However, it wasn’t rare for several families to live in them, as each room had a fireplace and was served by the central staircase. Since the 1970s, the town has grown outwards towards the villages. On the road to Guémené-sur-Scorff, stone houses and buildings from the 1960s to 1990 stand side by side. The Neo-Breton style, with ashlar stones around the openings, is well represented. The suburban extensions of the 2000s on the outskirts of the town offer a variety of modern houses with large bay windows, square or L-shaped, sometimes with flat roofs.

Known as the de Brûlé stream upstream, the Brandifrout rises north of Bubry before flowing into the Blavet at the village of Brandifrout. Its main tributaries are the streams from the Fontaine Saint-Hervé, Locqueltas and Coëtano. This river of aquatic buttercups and water starwort is home to salmon and trout, and to a very rare shellfish, the pearl mussel, a species protected by Natura 2000. Although modest in size, at various times the Brandifrout has supplied water to no fewer than eight mills over its 14 km length: the Rousse mill, the Perros mill, the Brétinio mill, the Coëdiquel mill, the Duc mill, the two Brûlé mills in Bubry, and the Villeneuve Jacquelot mill in Quistinic. The Brûlé mills are some of the rare flour mills still operating, producing bread flour and buckwheat.

Unlike oak, chestnut or beech, fir trees are not part of the natural Breton forest, which only includes one conifer, called the yew. From all over the world, these trees and shrubs are now part of our landscape, alongside the spruce, pine and larch. The presence of firs in Brittany goes back to the 19th century, for timber production and as decorative trees in gardens. Like laurels originally from gardens, these trees are very invasive in woodland and are not without impact on the biodiversity.

Although the land reforms destroyed most of the Breton bocage, it remains quite well preserved around the town of Bubry. In agricultural areas, hedgerows represent a total length of almost 300 kilometres. The average length of hedges is 80 metres per hectare of farmland, corresponding to a fairly dense network.  Pathways and plots of land bordered by embankments, created by peasants in the Ancien Régime, have hardly changed. While the rows of apple trees have disappeared, the land has however kept its primary purpose.Wooded areas, occupying over 25% of the townland, are concentrated on valley slopes, steep slopes and high points.

Growing widely through Brittany along pathways and in woodlands, bracken grows in full sunlight or in semi-shade, on rocky, acid soil like here in the old moors of Kerborgne. like here in the old moors of Kerborgne. This abundant moor was once very useful in the Breton agrarian system. Its plants used to be harvested for use as bedding for cattle, and to make a natural fertiliser. The plants were piled up in farmyards and mixed with other organic waste, then trampled on by the animals, converting the matter into “framboy” used to fertilise the fields.

Once you've crossed the Brûlé stream, you'll see a group of buildings on your left, hiding the ruins and former wheel of the old Coëtiquel mill. Used for milling wheat and buckwheat, it was part of Coëtdiquel manor, attested as an estate as early as the 16th century. The dyke damming the creek created a pool of water big enough to feed the bypass channel that turned the wheel. It was also crossed by a road linking the estate to the town of Bubry.

Places of burial and remembrance, cemeteries are part of our architectural heritage. Each one has its own history, sometimes with ancient tombs, chapels or crosses. Bubry cemetery, which was moved here at the end of the 19th century, houses the calvary formerly located to the south of the church. Probably dating from the 17th century, it is distinctive with its scalloped shaft, decorated with excrescences reminiscent of the bubonic plague, but it has lost its main ornaments and the cross was broken. Once framed by a statue of the Virgin and Child and one of Saint John, it had a cross sculpted with a Christ on the Cross and a Virgin and Child. The cemetery also contains the graves of the family of Marshal Louis Franchet d'Espérey, who once owned the Perros manor house. He died in 1942 and was posthumously buried in the crypt of the Saint-Louis des Invalides church in Paris in 1947.