Site: Sainte-Tréphine

Name:Sainte-Tréphine (Sant-Trifin) CISP No:STRPH
Place:Sainte-Tréphine (Sant-Trifin) Grid Ref:192.6 2377.6 (FR)   Map
Parish:Sainte-Tréphine (Sant-Trifin) Stones:1
County:Côtes-d'Armor (Aodoù-an-Arvor) , France Saint(s):Trifine
Site Type:ecclesiastical

Site Notes

Davies et al/2000, 169--170: `Sainte-Tréphine lies near the centre of Brittany, 30km east of Carhaix and 30km south of Guingamp, west of the Sulon river (between the confluence of the Blavet and the Sulon), at 145m above sea level. The underlying bedrock is sedimentary (Carboniferous). The bourg lies at the top of a steady rise and is surrounded by rolling, mixed farmland of good agricultural quality.

In the early 19th century (1839) the disposition of housing in the bourg and the road pattern were very similar to that of the late 20th century, although there was less building on the outskirts of the settlement (Archives Départmentales du Côtes-d'Armor 3P Plans, carton 23). It was surrounded by scattered settlements and mixed farming, as now; the site of the church was not focal to the road pattern.

Given its position on the rise, the churchyard not surprisingly stands to a considerable height above the surrounding ground level on the north side (as much as 3m), although it is also notably raised on the south (1m). Within the yard there are at least three other stelae as well as the stone chapel which is beside the inscribed pillar; this chapel contains a sub-rectangular stone cist, set into the floor, surrounded by five hemispherical stones, and it clearly replaced the earlier wooden chapel of the drawing, having been built `recently' when Keranflec'h wrote (1888); the remains of a further stone cist lie to the east of this chapel, within an open, low enclosure. Daire and Giot noted an inland concentration of stèles hautes in the vicinity of Sainte-Tréphine'.

References

Stones