Plouguernével: History, Architecture and River Landscape

Plouguernével combines historic buildings with a river landscape whose paths and waterworks tell different stories. The Petit Séminaire’s history spans its founding and its later use as a departmental hospice; the Church of Saint-Pierre has an 18th-century pulpit and a tomb bearing the founder’s coat of arms. At the Coat Natous flight of locks, two chambers and two flights of steps define the structure. The Vallée du Doré adds a riverside path, a bridge and a granite landscape. These themes are easy to distinguish when planning your visit: historical development and church furnishings on the one hand, water engineering and landscape on the other.

The Coat Natous flight of locks

The Coat Natous flight of locks is the only double lock on the Nantes–Brest Canal. As a double-chamber lock, it has two chambers arranged in succession and connected by two straight flights of steps. Each flight has sixteen steps, making 32 in total. Its distinctive design can be understood through two specific features: the sequence of chambers and the steps connecting them. Coat Natous thus offers a contrast to the ecclesiastical and institutional themes: here, the focus is on construction and water engineering, not on the furnishings of an interior.

The history of the seminary and Saint-Pierre

The Petit Séminaire of Plouguernével was founded in 1669 by Maurice Picot de Coëthual, the parish priest. After it was sold during the Revolution, its function changed over the following decades; in 1932, it became a departmental hospice. Its founding and its later status as a hospice mark different phases in its history, with a sale and change of function in between.

The Church of Saint-Pierre has a personal connection to its founder: it contains a tomb bearing the coat of arms of Maurice Picot de Coëthual. Most of the church dates from the 18th century. Its wooden pulpit, also from that century, is decorated with sculptures of the four Evangelists. The tomb and the pulpit represent different details of the church’s furnishings: the founder’s coat of arms on the one hand, and the figurative depictions of the Evangelists on the other.

Paths, bridges and the Vallée du Doré

A former railway line that crosses Plouguernével has been converted into a Voie Verte (greenway). This is a different kind of change from that of the Petit Séminaire: there, an institution changed function; here, a former railway line was converted. Both facts give the town’s history a sense of change over time, but describe different areas.

In the Vallée du Doré, a footpath follows the river to an old Roman bridge spanning the watercourse. Downstream from Pont-Croix, the Vallée du Doré forms a granite landscape of boulders. Pont-Croix is a granite arch bridge in the Vallée du Doré; visible grooves there bear witness to former wooden sluice gates that served as a weir. The landscape thus brings together the river, bridge construction and traces of earlier water management.

The two walking routes are easy to distinguish: the Voie Verte follows a former railway line, while the footpath in the Vallée du Doré follows the river to an old Roman bridge.

Discover more destinations: Kermoroc'h, Saint-Juvat, Plumieux, Paule, Aucaleuc, Pléven, Matignon, Guingamp.

For the broader travel overview: Côtes-D’armor.