Page 27 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Brittany

A POR TR AIT OF BRIT T AN Y  25

Around the House
Certain integral features of the rural Breton
house are to be found not inside its walls but
outside. One is the bread oven, the style of
which has remained almost unchanged since
the Middle Ages. Because of the danger of
fire, the oven was often located away from
the house. The granite trough, a traditional Granite drinking-trough
piece of equipment in Lower Brittany, served or mortar
as a drinking trough for animals and was also
used as a mortar in which fodder was ground
before it was given to horses. Bread oven with
small recess

The ridge of the roof was
sometimes finished with
a row of slates – known as
kribenn in Breton. The slates
may be carved into shapes
such as cats or birds, or into
dates or initials.

Houses with Extensions
Many houses in Finistère have an extension –
known as apoteiz or kuz taol in Breton – that
protrudes 4 to 5 m (13 to 16 ft) from the façade.
This additional space was used to store the table,
benches and sometimes a box-bed, so as to
create more space around the hearth.

Blocks of hewn stone were
used as cornerstones in both
houses and enclosure walls.

The granite doorway,
with a lintel consisting of Dormer windows are a
three voussoirs (blocks of relatively late feature of rural
curved stone), is one of Breton houses. They did not
the most typical of Brittany. appear until the 1870s.

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