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Origin and history

The mansion of Saint-Quijeau, located in Lanvenegen (Morbihan), was first mentioned in 1426 as a property of the family Du Reme, received in dowry by Jehan Du Reme via his marriage with a heiress of the mansion of Diarnelez. This fief, originally attached to Diarnelez (Le Faouët), passes to the Guégant at the beginning of the seventeenth century by alliance, as their weapons testify on the stained glass windows of the parish church. The seigneury, in debt, was auctioned at the end of the seventeenth century and acquired by Thomas de Kervenozaël, a lawyer who tried to modernize it without success before his death in 1730.

In 1731, the heir Marie-Françoise de Kervenozaël married Louis Nicolas de Plœuc, a parliamentarian who had become Marquis in 1734. The couple transformed Saint-Quijeau into a prosperous farm (50 ha of apple trees for the cider, hay production) and undertook a major architectural renovation between 1730 and 1750: symetrication of the communes, reconstruction of the chapel, addition of stables and a double staircase in E. The works were interrupted in 1753 to finance the Guilguiffin castle, another property of the Pleuc. At the Revolution, the manor house, confiscated as a national property, was bought in 1796 by Jeanne Thomase de Plœuc, mother of the emigrant Count Victor du Botdéru.

The estate changed hands several times in the 19th century: sold between 1843 and 1845, it became a farm in 1855 under Thomas Cadic. Ranked as a historic monument in 1998 for its house body, communes and armorized portal, the mansion has been the subject of an anastylosis restoration since 2016, beginning with the chapel. Its typical closed plan (courtyard framed by the house, the commons and a fence) and its lost gardens make it a witness to the architectural evolutions between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment.

The building preserves traces of its successive phases: the structure of the 15th century, redesigned in the 18th century to adopt the classic cannons (perspectives, symmetry), and outbuildings such as the stable or the bread oven. The stained glass windows of the local church and the archives mention the family alliances (Du Reste, Guégant, Kervénozaël, Pleuc) that marked its history, while the walls of the old gardens and the unidentified coat of arms of the gate recall its seigneurial past.

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