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Origin and history

The chapel Saint-Nicolas-des-Eaux, built in the first quarter of the 16th century, is the result of donations from the family of Kerveno, whose arms adorn the sandstones and facade. An inscription in the choir ("JEHAN LAYEC FIST LE BOYS DE CESTE L'AN M Vc XXIIII", 1524) confirms this date. The south arm of the transept, slightly posterior, reveals a fall in the roof, while the flat bedside is illuminated by a lily-flowered berry, typical of the flamboyant Gothic. The site once housed a priory dependent on the Benedictine abbey Saint-Florent-le-Vieil de Saumur, founded in 1120 by local lords (Hervé son of Jagu and Hervé son of Eudon), then attached to the abbeys of Saint-Sauveur de Redon and Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys. The chapel became a truce of Pluméliau in the 16th century, marked by the substitution of the monks by secular priests as commissioned abbots.

The building has remarkable architectural peculiarities: a western portal "Morbihannais" (matched doors surmounted by a stained glass window), a south door in braid, and two skulls embedded in the north wall, whose meaning remains mysterious. Inside, sandstones carved with naive motifs and traces of a possible jube (preparatory pillars) suggest a complex liturgical organization. The south wall, in rubble, could testify to a reconstruction after a collapse. In the 19th century, modifications took place: the building of the bedside consoles in 1830 to install a tableau (of which altar, tabernacle and painting remain), and the addition of a sacristy in the northeast corner. The chapel, inscribed in the Historical Monuments since 1928, also preserves the remains of an unfinished seigneurial chapel (arcs blocked to the north) and of a missing secretariat (high clogged door).

The site was once the heart of a monastic and funerary complex, as evidenced by successive donations (land, mill, parish revenues in 1208) and the presence of a medieval cemetery. The waiting stones in the transept square suggest an aborted jube project, while the frame reveals a gap between the nave and the south transept, possibly linked to distinct construction phases. A communal property since the 19th century, the chapel thus blends Benedictine heritage, seigneurial (family of Kerveno) and parish, illustrating the religious and social changes of Brittany between the Middle Ages and the modern era.

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