Chapelle Notre-Dame du Pénéty et sa fontaine

Persquen

On the edge of the village of Le Pénéty, the chapelle Notre-Dame is a building in the shape of a Latin cross with a single nave, of granite and slate, beneath a masonry spire. Its west gable is unusual: a blind arcade rises up it to the base of the bell tower, whose bell chamber is extensively openwork. Of the 1600 chapel, the date borne by the round-arched portal, only this façade remains; the rest was repaired and almost entirely rebuilt in 1722. Inside, the ribbed plaster vaults bear a series of painted ex-votos in medallions, all signed and dated to around the second quarter of the 19th century: a survivor of a shipwreck, a patient cured, a house spared from the flames of a fire, so many thanks given to Notre-Dame. A large polychrome wooden statue of the Virgin and Child, known as Notre-Dame du Pénéty, from the last quarter of the 18th century, stands in the south arm; statues sheltered in a niche of the chancel are said to depict the scene of the apparition. For the chapel owes its foundation, according to tradition, to an apparition of the Virgin, which the sources neither date nor describe. Behind the chevet, the 1686 devotional fountain, beneath a triangular gable topped by a cross, is said to cure ringworm. In the 19th century, the pilgrimage was very well attended on the first Sunday of August, and indeed all year round; the first mass was said there every Sunday, and high mass on every feast of the Virgin.

Inventaire du patrimoine de Bretagne — Chapelle Notre-Dame, Le Pénéty ↗

Getting there : At the place called Le Pénéty, commune of Persquen, south-west of the village (to be checked for the route). The enclosure and fountain are open access; the opening of the chapel is not documented (to be checked).

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

Ambient sound