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Origin and history

The Kergal mansion, located in the eponymous hamlet 1.6 km north of Brandivy (Morbihan), is an early 16th century building attributed to the brothers Jean and Pierre Danielo. A dating by dendrochronology (2016) confirms two work campaigns: around 1518-1520 for the west, and around 1550 for the east extension. The mansion carries the arms of the Danielo, an influential family linked to the valveite church. Jean Daniélo, canon and archdeacon of Vannes, also directed works at the Cathedral of Vannes and founded the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. When he died in 1540, his brother Pierre, who became vicar general of the diocese, finished the mansion.

Contrary to wrong 19th-century assignments (notably by Abbé Guilloux), the mansion did not belong to the Lantivy before 1634. That year, Jacquette Le Crossec (heritage of Daniélo by his grandmother Marie Danielo) married Mathieu de Lantivy, integrating Kergal into this line until 1707. The seigneury extended over 100 hectares, with rights to estates, a dovecote, fisheries, and preeminences in the church of Brandivy. The Lantivy also claimed a right of mill, contested by neighbouring lords like Jean Le Cleguennec.

At the time of the Revolution, the manor house, then owned by Le Flo de Tremelo, was reportedly damaged by the Chouans (theft of lead to make bullets). In the 19th century, it passed through successive alliances at Le Pourceau de Mondoret, then at the Rado du Matz, before being bought in 1892 by the family Le Gloanic, which kept it until 2010. The architecture combines two housing bodies: in the west, a door in basket handle and sculpted rubbish windows (arms, animals); in the east, a hexagonal tower and a scalloped skylight. Ranked a Historic Monument in 1925, it illustrates the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Brittany.

The archives reveal that Kergal was already mentioned in 1444 as a holding (agricultural exploit) held by the Danielo family, but without a manor status. It was only in the 16th century, under the leadership of the Danielo brothers, that the site became a seigneurial seat. The manor arms, taken from the dean of Péaule, suggest their creation by Jean Daniélo. After the Lantivy, the seigneury fell to the Vergier du Poüe (1707), then to the Le Flo, before becoming a farm rented to farmers in the 19th and 20th centuries. The current owners, since 2010, continue to preserve it.

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