Hauts LieuxChapels, sanctuaries & legends

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ChapelIlle-et-Vilaine

Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Désert

Laillé

Dimensions
Chapel attested from 1681, partly destroyed at the Revolution, rebuilt in 1833 and again after a fire in 2006
Period
Foundation legend predating 1681, exact date unknown; recounted notably in a scholarly article of 1901
What stands there
According to tradition, the statue vanished every night from the lord's manor to return beneath the hawthorn on the heath

According to local legend, peasants found a statue of the Virgin in a hawthorn bush on the heath of Le Désert. Carried to the nearby manorial chapel, it vanished every night, to be found the next day beneath the same bush. The lord of Laillé saw a sign in this and had a chapel built on the spot. This foundation story, recounted in a scholarly article of 1901, belongs to popular tradition rather than to historically established fact.

Persée — Bulletin de la Société archéologique et historique d'Ille-et-Vilaine (1901) ↗

Getting there : South-east of the village of Laillé (Ille-et-Vilaine), at the junction of the roads to Mandon and La Roche

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

See it on the map OpenStreetMap Directions

Ambient sound

Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Désert
VIGNERON · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

In the same department

All places — Ille-et-Vilaine (31).