Kerroc'h Dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.414  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: A 4 metre by 3 metre capstone sits one end in the air on two supports, while the other side is on the ground. There is one more bit of large stone here, which may be a support, or may be a broken bit of capstone. It would seem that the rest of the stones from this dolmen have been used to build the wall around the house opposite, a strange large gatewayed studio. But perhaps there was once some sort of cromlech here.

Kerroc’h cromlech

Trip No.203  Entry No.415  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Stone Circle Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: Oppsite to the dolmen, the gently arced wall around the house (a strange large gatewayed studio) is made up using many large stones. Perhaps there was once some sort of cromlech here, like that at Crucuny, perhaps the wall is made usong large stones from the ruined dolmen.

Conguel Menhir

Trip No.203  Entry No.428  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 2 Access 5

Log Text: This menhir, about 3 metres tall, has been moved to its current position just outside the SNCF holiday complex from a position nearby when building work was being undertaken. It now serves as a sort of garden feature, and is easily seen from the road.

Beg-er-Goalennec Menhirs

Trip No.203  Entry No.421  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stones Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: The first menhir is a sadly broken menhir right beside a restaurant on the Cote Sauvage roadside. It's 4 metres high with another 2 metres broken from the top laying beside it. It is over 2 metres wide and only 30cm thick. It has a strangely shaped neighbour between it and the sea.

The second menhir is a sort of heart shaped menhir (no doubt due to breakage) which stands 3 metres high right beside the Cote Sauvage road opposite a little restaurant and near to a car park. It is splendidly situated to sit and watch the waves break over this spectacular coastline.

Beg-er-Goalennec 1

Trip No.203  Entry No.420  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: This is a nice menhir, less than 3 metres tall, standing in heathland just beside the Cote Sauvage road and cliffs. A splendid position. It probably gets covered in sea spray in rough weather from the blow hole nearby.

Manémeur 1 menhir

Trip No.203  Entry No.423  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: This menhir is right in the central square of the hamlet of Manémeur. It is about 3 metres high, 2 m wide and 0.5 m thick, and has several cupules in its southern face. It is nowadays kept within a little circular flowerbed, unfortunately squeezed between roadsigns and parked cars while I was here, making pictures difficult.

Pointe de la Guérite allée couverte

Trip No.203  Entry No.426  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Passage Grave Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 5 Access 5

Log Text: This little allée couverte sits right on the clifftop, still surprisingly within its little cairn of stones, so what you get to see is its 6 capstones lined up facing away from the sea at 100°. It has been cut through by the road at the east end, so it is possible that it was longer than its current 6 metres. But what a superb position it occupies, overlooking the splendid Cote Sauvage.

Manémeur 2 & 3 menhirs

Trip No.203  Entry No.424  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stones Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4

Log Text: These are two good sized menhirs just inland from the Cote Sauvage, up a slight rise. The two of them are about 20 metres apart, the bigger one being higher up the slope. It is about 5 metres high, 3 metres wide and tapers upwards. Its smaller companion is about 3 metres high. Both have some lovely lichen growing on them.

Pointe de la Guérite menhir

Trip No.203  Entry No.425  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: This is a relatively small menhir right above the cliffs of the magnificent Cote Sauvage, easily found between the clifftop path and the road.

Conguel Dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.427  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: Beside the road running along the shore out to the tip of Pointe du Conguel, and incorporated into the pavement just outside the SNCF holiday complex, can be seen the remains of this burial chamber. Possibly, one side of it is natural rock, or perhaps a fallen capstone, but it has a definite backstone and two or three other side slabs. It is about 3.5 metres in length, by 1 metre wide, and the road slightly diverts to skirt around it.

Roc'h en Aud Dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.419  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: This is a curious affair, right in amongst the houses. It has a sort of square chamber, 4 m by 4 m with an entrance in the middle of the eastern side. But around the top of the side slabs (three per side) is a sort of circle of capstones, overhanging the chamber. The top of the main chamber is not covered. It looks to me as if the covering was of a sort of large corbelling arrangement with the top stone gone. Intriguing.

Kerbougnec Cromlech

Trip No.203  Entry No.416  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Stone Circle Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: Found in amongst the houses of St-Pierre-Quiberon, this is nowadays a large semi circle of about 40 contiguous stones, average height about 1.8 metres. It is however just a small part of the remains of what was perhaps once an egg shaped enclosure, with a diameters of about 95 by 75 metres.

It is to be found just off the main road along the peninsular, and is nowadays surrounding a tennis court in a very quiet little cul-de-sac.

St-Pierre-Quiberon Alignement

Trip No.203  Entry No.417  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Stone Row / Alignment Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: Just beyond the cromlech, and towards the town centre and the sea can be found a pleasant little park with the remains of these alignements in it. The notice says that there are 23 stones in 5 parallel rows, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were many more dotted about in peoples gardens.

The stones are of all shapes and sizes, up to 4 metres tall. There's a lovely curved "sharks fin" in front of me as I sit and write this, and a diamond to my right. These stones are wonderful, and its lovely to be able to just sit amongst them. Supposedly the lines travel further down and out into the sea, remains of which can be seen at very low tides.

I followed the little lane down to the beach and the sea, and the tide was well out. There seemed to me to be several very clear lines of rocks stretching out into the sea in parallel rows. The earth and soil has obviously been washed away from around the rocks, and they now just sit on the rocky seabed, but lines of them there definitely are. I believe I can see at least seven rows of rocks from where I sit on the bottom of the steps down to the beach. Fantastic! But I'll bet they dont show up well in my pictures though.

Fontaine St Michel

Trip No.203  Entry No.412  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 3

Log Text: Following the path round the back of the tumulus looking to get a good photograph there was a sign to Fontaine St Michel which I followed. After a few hundred metres there is a nice little well with a little well house and offerings area above a clear pool of water slowly bubbling up from the ground.

I have no doubt that this spring has been here for thousands of years and indeed quenched the thirst of the men building the tumulus. And this turned out to be site 500 in my French stonehunting trip catalogue of site visits. Incredible really that I am seeing hundreds of dolmens and menhirs yet a well gets to be site 500. Probably only my third well !

Kerbourgnec Alignements

Trip No.203  Entry No.418  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Stone Row / Alignment Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: At low tide, from the beach at Kerbourgnec, can be seen the remains of these alignements. More than a dozen rows of stones can be seen, stretching for about 400 metres into the sea. These stones are associated to a cromlech (of which a few of the stones can be seen) and tumulus.

Saint-Michel tumulus

Trip No.203  Entry No.411  Date Added: 21st May 2020
Site Type: Chambered Cairn Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 14th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 2 Access 4

Log Text: Very old and big. Visits inside no longer available like they were in the 1980s.

Mané Keriaval

Trip No.203  Entry No.391  Date Added: 14th May 2020
Site Type: Passage Grave Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 13th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: Now this is a nice one, not only for the monument, but it is signposted and not being worn away by masses of visitors. Best of all, it has obviously been cleared within the last day or so of all the undergrowth which was here. About time I found one of these which was treated a bit better, and well looked after, although it must have been several years since the last time it was cleared judging by the size of some of the cuttings.

This must be the remains of a double transepted tomb with a main passageway about 8 metres in length, facing east at 115°. Off from this passageway are four side chambers, arranged in two pairs opposite each other, and each being about 2 metres square. The end of the chamber, and the two northern side chambers still have large capstones in place, and there are still substantial traces of a mound surrounding everything.

Kerluir Menhir

Trip No.203  Entry No.409  Date Added: 14th May 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 13th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 3 Access 3

Log Text: This is a nicely shaped 4 metre high menhir in the middle of a field about 800 metres to the south of the Kermario alignements, and as such, the poor thing is a bit overshadowed. But I was taken with its leaning and its pointy top, and liked it a lot. To find this go down the track to the south of the Kermario dolmen, and then you will find it across the field a bit further to the south at the corner.

Kerluir Dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.410  Date Added: 14th May 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 13th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 3

Log Text: There's a big mound here on top of a hillock, to the east of the Kerluir menhir, but its all covered with gorse and blackthorn. However, there is a way through, and somewhere in the middle can be found this tiny little dolmen, which consists of a capstone sitting on two sidestones, with a few other stones in the vicinity. It wouldn't surprise me if this wasn't just a set of stones from an entry corridor, and that there is, or was, something much bigger lurking in the thick undergrowth !

Crucuno Cromlech

Trip No.203  Entry No.397  Date Added: 14th May 2020
Site Type: Stone Circle Country: France (Bretagne:Morbihan (56))
Visited: Yes on 13th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: What a lovely and unexpected find this was, not so much the expected semi-circular cromlech, but an almost complete rectangle of large stones. There are 22 remaining stones, on average 2 metres in height, arranged in a rectangle measuring about 33 metres by 25 metres. The long sides are aligned just about due east - west, with the shorter sides north - south.

It has been "restored" in 1882, but is supposedly a very accurate restoration job, and matches earlier plans well. It is thought that this could have been set up for astronomical observations, as not only do the east - west sides align to the equinox sunrise and sunset, but perhaps more importantly, the diagonals align to the both the solstice sunrise and sunset positions, rather like the four station stones at stonehenge. It has also been suggested that the positions of various major moon rise and moonset positions are indicated.

It is easy enough to find, a few hundred metres to the east of the village centre. From here follow the track which passes in front of the house with the dolmen for a few hundred metres, then turn right when the track splits for another 50 metres, and you arrive at the field within which the monument resides.

Thankfully, when I visited, the whole field had recently been cleared of all the gorse and brambles, and was nicely open. Remarkably, for somewhere so close to the busy Crucuno dolmen, and possibly such an important site, hardly anybody seems to know its here, and it seems all the tourists visit the dolmen, but miss this. I dont cease to be amazed by all the Breton megalithic sites, it truly is a wonderland - whatever will be next.