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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Port Andro model tower, located in Locmaria, Brittany, is part of a fortified ensemble designed to defend the Anse against enemy landings. It belongs to the "model tower 1846 n°2" type, a two-storey structure with terrace, built between 1860 and 1861 to house 40 men and two 12 cm shells. This standardized model met the needs of the Joint Coastal Armaments Commission (1841), which favoured this type of structure rather than the existing battery, which was considered obsolete.

The Port Andro site has a long military history, dating back at least to the seventeenth century. In 1689 Vauban proposed to install a battery of three cannons to secure the handle, attested in 1705. The site was strengthened after 1759 by a dyke, then became a strategic point during the wars of the Revolution and the Empire. In 1803 his armament consisted of two 24 pound guns, one of 12 and a mortar. The current tower, built on the site of the old battery, was disused in 1874 and sold as a private property in 1891.

Port Andro was also the scene of an aborted landing of the English in 1761, pushed back by the local defences. The cuts, maintained until the 1860s, continued as a Coast Guard post before being abandoned. During World War II, the Germans used the battery and its surroundings to install combat positions, marking a final military phase of the site. Today, the tower, classified as a Historic Monument in 2000, is a private property transformed into a home.

The evolution of the site illustrates the successive adaptations of French coastal fortifications, from Vauban's recommendations to the standardized models of the 19th century. The 1846 model tower, designed to withstand modern fire, symbolizes this transition to a centralized and technicalized defence, before its decline in the face of the strategic changes of the end of the century.

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