Site: Louannec

Name:Louannec (Louaneg) CISP No:LOUAN
Place:Louannec (Louaneg) Grid Ref:177.8 2437.3 (FR)   Map
Parish:Louannec (Louaneg) Stones:1
County:Côtes-d'Armor (Aodoù-an-Arvor) , France Saint(s):Peter ; Yves Haelori
Site Type:ecclesiastical

Site Notes

Davies et al/2000, 143--144, `Louannec lies close to the north coast of Brittany, in the west of Côtes-d'Armor. The local bedrock is granite. The parish church is on elevated land 600m from the coast, 65m above sea level, the ground dropping down sharply to the north and the west. The position of the church is therefore prominent and nowadays lies on the coast road.

The churchyard itself lies at least 2m above present ground level.

A medieval church, with what was reported to be a 'romanesque' nave, stood in the churchyard until 1896, when it was demolished to make way for the present larger building. A plan of this earlier church is preserved on the earliest cadastral map (ADC'dA 3P Plans, carton 11, section A2). This 19th-century map is undated and is much more crudely executed than is usual for cadastral maps; however, it is nevertheless sufficient to show that the settlement at Louannec was extremely small at the time it was drawn (which was therefore presumably in the early or mid-19th century): about a dozen households, far less than the profusion of modern building.

The church depicted on the plan lay at the northern edge of a sub-circular churchyard (though the streetline to the north seems to preserve some trace of a once-larger enclosure) and was clearly focal to the road system. The surrounding landscape consisted of small hamlets and small sub-rectangular fields of mixed agricultural land-use.'

References

Stones