Église Notre-Dame de Bulat et ses trois fontaines

Bulat-Pestivien

The église Notre-Dame de Bulat is surprising in its scale for a village in Central Brittany: some forty metres long, a west tower with eight buttresses and a spire sixty-six metres high, said to be the tallest in the département. Yet it was only a pilgrimage chapel, becoming a parish church only in 1804. The chancel goes back to the 14th century; the building was under reconstruction in 1463, received its south porch in 1505, and then its tower, begun, according to the inscription, on the 'twenty-ninth day of February' 1530 - a singular date, as the year was not a leap year - by the master builder Fouquet Jehannou, to whom the sacristy of 1552, decorated with a dance of death, is also owed. Struck by lightning in 1836, the tower received its present spire in 1865. At the end of the Ancien Régime, pilgrims' offerings made Notre-Dame de Bulat the wealthiest chapel in the bishopric of Cornouaille. Three fountains accompany the sanctuary: that of the Virgin, also called du Lait or des Nourrices, at the bottom of the cemetery, enclosed with walls in 1718; those of the Coq and the Sept-Saints, by the roadside, the second built in 1683 in honour of the seven founders of the Breton bishoprics. Tradition attributes the first sanctuary to a vow made by the lords of Pestivien, around the end of the 12th century, and credits the water of the cemetery fountain with the power to bring back milk to nursing mothers; these accounts are known only from local monographs. The church retains an offertory table of 1583, a retable by Yves Corlay delivered in 1703, and a silver Virgin of 1747.

Wikipédia — Église Notre-Dame de Bulat ↗

Getting there : In the village of Bulat, in the commune of Bulat-Pestivien; the enclosure and surroundings are open access. The fontaine de la Vierge is at the bottom of the cemetery, and those of the Coq and the Sept-Saints line the road to Callac (RD 50) some two hundred metres away. Opening hours of the church (to be checked). The great pardon is traditionally held on the Sunday following 8 September (to be checked).

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

Ambient sound