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Origin and history

The House of the 16th century, located 22 Colvestre Street in Tréguier (Côtes d'Armor), is a remarkable example of Breton Renaissance civil architecture. Its grey granite facade, adorned with flamboyant Gothic openings (archives on the ground floor, sled windows on the first floor), bears witness to a refined craftsmanship. Originally, a wood-paned floor in corbellation overlooked the street, later replaced by a stone masonry after its probable destruction during the League wars (1588-1598). The house adopts a three-way plan centered on a 3.15-metre-diameter screw stairwell, serving five levels, including two between floors. Its spatial organization suggests a vocation both residential and professional, perhaps linked to a craft workshop (goldsmith or jeweller), protected by a monitoring system via a juda in overhang.

The house is distinguished by its private chapel on the second floor, an exceptional element in a Breton urban house. Equipped with a niche and credence for liturgical objects and two hagioscopes (openings to see the altar from adjacent rooms), it reveals the importance of domestic worship for its occupants. A window bay (now gone) and statue-carved consoles completed this sacred space. The stairway tower, initially surmounted by a dovecote accessible by a secondary turret, preserves remains of Armo-American frame with earth hounds. The house offered a panoramic view of Saint-Tugdual Cathedral, its western porch, and the mouth of the Tréguier River, highlighting its high social status.

The archives mention the house as a "great noble house of Kericuf" in 1612, owned by Henry of Kergrec, lord of the Verger and provost of Tréguier in 1593. Rented to Jullien Robin (perhaps an artisan linked to the cathedral), she passed in 1651 to her heirs, then in the 18th century to François Garjan, knight and lord of Kerverzault. His later designation as "the Duke's house Jean V" seems to be a post-Ancien Régime attribution, with no historical basis verified. Ranked a historic monument in 1926 for its facade and roof, it illustrates the architectural evolution of Breton urban hotels, between medieval tradition (pan of wood, hagioscopes) and Renaissance innovations (symmetry, cut stone).

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