Plouay Tro Ploue Circuit

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.

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.

After the 1987 storm, the site was devastated. The local authority restored the large lake dug by the de Pluvié family at the beginning of the 20th century, and created two smaller ones upstream, mainly fed by the Fetan er Hoc spring now under water. These ornamental lakes are popular with fishermen. The largest of them offers the most experienced the opportunity to catch pike, tench and carp. The two smaller ones have been designed to allow the younger ones to learn how to fish roaches and rainbow trout. 

Coët Fao wood once belonged to the Manehouarn seigneury. 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 put 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 the English coalmines, exported from the port of Lorient. Cut rapidly every 25 years, they offered landowners a good return.  Today, the public part of the wood, comprising 61 hectares, is managed by the Office National des Forêts, which is responsible for felling and planting trees. There are plenty of paths which are ideal for walking.

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 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.

Up the hill in Coet Fao woods, you can still see the circular base of a windmill registered on the 1843 Napoleonic land registry as “Moulin à vent de la Rue Neuve”. Owned by the de Pluvié de Manehouarn family, holders of the Rue Neuve seigneury under the Ancien Régime, it was one of three mills on the Rue Neuve. The other two were located further down the hill along the Malachappe stream. Using the power of wind and water, they operated mechanisms for milling grain and sawing wood. This combination of water and windmills was not uncommon during the Ancien Régime, as the Napoleonic land registry shows: they can be found in all the surrounding townlands. The Château de Kerdrého in Plouay also had a windmill associated with its water mill. Windmills were less numerous and were probably abandoned very early on. Most of them have now disappeared.

In 1808, when the village was short of drinking water, Mayor Joseph Maho commissioned the lowest bidder to build this fountain. By 1809, repairs were already needed as was the construction of a paved road. Named Fontaine de la Rue Neuve, it was not until later that the name Fontaine Saint-Ouen came to be associated with a procession from the fountain to the church of Saint-Ouen on this saint’s day.

The Bécherel district, separated from the town by the stream of the same name, was very lively in the 20th century. As well as houses built along the village path, the pond and mill that once belonged to the Kerdrého seigneury, there were numerous shops, craftsmen, a sawmill, the presbytery, the first oratory and a fire department... The inhabitants had the use of two washhouses. The municipal washhouse, built in 1890 on an older washhouse, was covered and its courtyard completely restored in 1926. It was rebuilt in concrete in 1937, then converted in 1983. Its remains can still be seen near the current community hall. The more basic “rue de l'Oratoire” washhouse, built around 1940, was organized around a semicircular basin marked out by uncut stones, some of which sloped down to facilitate washing. Only later, in the 2000s, it took on the appearance we see today.

The Notre-Dame de Bécherel oratory was built in 1953 by the local population in gratitude for protection during the war. It features a granite Virgin of Pity, probably from the 16th century, that was found in the mill pond. Originating from the old chapel, once located near the mill, it is mentioned in archives dating back to the 17th century, with the blessing of a bell in 1664. The dilapidated church, with its collapsing steeple, was destroyed in 1814. Local residents remain very attached to this place. A pardon is held here every year in mid-July.

On the right, at the edge of the stream, along the rocky walls, a replica of the grotto of Lourdes was built in 1955 by Madame Le Goaller, an inhabitant of Plouay. Seriously ill in 1949, she went to Lourdes to visit the Montfort Fathers and returned cured. The site became a place of prayer and thanksgiving to the Virgin as can be seen by the ex-voto plaques placed at the feet of the statue of the Virgin. A religious ceremony is held there on 15th August. 

The “Roman” bridge, called Pont an daul in 1843 on the Napoleonic land registry, probably owes its name to the age of the road that crosses it. Although it is difficult to date, architectural surveys have proven that it is not at all Roman but probably predates the 19th century. Its three rounded piers, narrow arches and ashlar stone deck were carefully crafted. This is unusual for this modest river crossing, which joins the Malachappe and Crano streams just upstream. Symbolic even in its construction, the Pont an Daul gave its name to the entrance to Plouay. The road that ran across it was the main access route to the village. In 1843, on the Napoleonic land registry, despite the existence at that time of the current road, then known as the “nouvelle route”, it was still called Route Royale n° 169 from Lorient to Roscoff. Coming from Kerchopine, it ran alongside the rue de Lann Justice to the church.

Located on a promontory, the Lann Justice (land of justice) area is a reminder of the gallows that stood here during the Ancien Régime. Plouay was also the seat of the high justice of the Lordship of Pontkalleg, located in Berné. It was exercised over all subjects living in his fiefdom, including a large part of the parish of Plouay. Judgments were handed down on Mondays, market days, in the Justice Auditorium on the upper floor of Les Halles, now Place du Marché. It included a prison, located to the south of the church, near the 1594 dwelling known as “Relais du Marquis”.  Punishments ranged from straitjacketing to prison, and for the most serious cases, a death sentence. The executions took place on the hill, where lordship’s pillars of justice and gallows were located. They were located not far from the present-day cross at Lann Justice, dating from the 17th century, and along the first access road to the village of Plouay. Each high court had its own gallows on a hill close to a main road, to remind the population of the risks incurred by criminals. Most of them can be seen on old maps and are easily identifiable by the names they still bear today, such as Lann Justice or Kerpotence.

The village of Kerspern, now part of Plouay, retains a few thatched cottages. At the beginning of the 20th century, they were still home to families working as ropemakers. They may have been the descendants of the Caquins or lepers, condemned by their contagious disease to live on the outskirts of towns and cities. Stigmatized in the Middle Ages and under the Ancien Régime, even after the disease had disappeared, they and their descendants were forced to remain in the leper colonies, and for a long time confined to the trade of ropemaker. 

On the right, Stang Nivinen cross, on an ancient plinth, commemorates the 1950-1951 Jubilee, launched by the pope after the Second World Warto pray for peace. Numerous roadside bear testament to human history. Not far away, towards Kerfratel, a 17th-century cross was erected on Lann Justice, the heath of justice, where the gallows of the high justice of Pontkalleg was located. A little further on, to the left, are two crosses one after the other, one honouring the victims of the Revolution, the other Saint Saviour. A lovely site on the river bank with its chapel dedicated to Christ, built in the 16th century and extended in the 18th century.

Once a single piece of land, cut in two by the Lorient-Roscoff road in the 1980s, the communal wood of Saint-Sauveur was once a vast moorland of some 30 hectares called “Lande du Prince”, probably in reference to the Dukes of Brittany, who held the Breton lands in the Middle Ages. Gradually wooded over the course of the 20th century, it is home, like Coët Fao wood, to local species and planted pines.

Commissioned in 2010 to replace an older one, the Pont en Daul wastewater treatment plant has been managed by Lorient Agglomération since 2014. Its activated sludge treatment eliminates phosphorus, nitrogen and carbon molecules present in wastewater. It has been treating wastewater from nearly 2,500 households in Plouay and Calan since 2017. The purified water is then discharged into the Saint-Sauveur, which is regularly tested for water quality.

Between here and the river Scorff, the Saint-Sauveur fed water to the four mills of Restaudran, Moustoir, Meslien and Tronchâteau. The 1843 Napoleonic land registry also reveals the presence of a fishery in this area, probably combining a stone dam and eel nets. 

This beautiful wet meadow dotted with rushes is home to the devotional fountain of the Saint-Sauveur chapel. Characterized by a triangular wall bearing the coat of arms of the lord who founded the chapel and a niche decorated with a shell, it includes a rectangular basin from which spring water flows. Forming a rivulet, it meanders through the grass before joining the Saint-Sauveur.

Devoted to Christ, the vast chapel of St-Sauveur was built in the second half of the 16th century, as indicated by its pointed-arched doorway to the west. The nave was rebuilt and enlarged at the end of the 18th century. It houses a Saint Savior, a Virgin and Child and a Christ on the Cross from the 17th century. A panel explains the history of this building, whose annual pardon takes place on the first Sunday in August.

This path follows one of Morbihan’s former railway lines; the 307-km network was established by the Morbihan department between 1885 and 1910. Connecting Plouay to Lorient from 1902 onwards, this section linked up—via Plouay station—with the Locminé line and the Gourin line (opened in 1906), which you crossed at the start of the route. Known as the "potato train," it served multiple purposes: transporting passengers, luggage, postal parcels, livestock, grain, and other agricultural produce. Facing competition from road transport, it went into decline around 1930 and dismantling began in 1938. The line remained intact and saw renewed service during the war before finally being closed in 1947.

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.