Chêne de la Liberté de Locquénolé

Locquénolé

In front of the church of Saint-Guénolé, a pedunculate oak of seventeen metres, with a trunk of 3.80 m in girth according to the only source that gives these measurements, holds the village square. It is young for a venerable tree, and that is precisely what makes it precious: its birth certificate exists. On 30 Nivôse Year II, 19 January 1794, the municipality sent for the pipers, and 'a great gathering of citizens having come there, the tree was planted to the acclamations of the people, filled with joy to see planted a monument which will attest to posterity the attachment that the said commune has always had for liberty'; the citizens and citizenesses danced around it until nightfall. Thousands of trees of Liberty were planted in France under the Revolution, and almost all have disappeared; this one is the only one in Brittany of which one can affirm, by a document of the time, that it is indeed the one of 1794. A local tradition, reported by a single regional website, adds that the men deposited their quid of tobacco in the burrs of the trunk before going in to mass. The oak grows in front of a church that the monks of Landévennec, the abbey founded according to tradition by Saint Guénolé, held in the Middle Ages: Romanesque nave of the 11th century, carved capitals of the 12th according to the same source, remodelling in the 17th century, bell tower of 1681. The tree is in good health, surrounded since the village works by a mulched perimeter, and it received the Arbre remarquable de France label on 15 November 2014, two hundred and twenty years after its planting.

Wikipédia — Locquénolé ↗

Getting there : From Morlaix, the D 73 follows the river northwards to Locquénolé; the oak is on the Place de la Liberté, in front of the church and the town hall, freely accessible. A mulched perimeter of about a hundred square metres protects it; one looks at it without climbing on it. The church is said to be open in the daytime in the warmer months (opening times to be checked).

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound