Chêne de la Ville Hervy - 400 à 600 ans

The size of this ancient pruning tree, its cult status and its great age make it remarkable.

Circumference : 7.25 m

Span : 18 m

Height : 12 m

Age : 400 - 600 years

It is a witness of the past of Plénée-Jugon, still visible nowadays. History reminds us that the Gauls venerated the oak and its mistletoe. Then Celts and Germans perpetuated this ancient custom. Later, shocked by this cult, some monks, and there was no shortage of them in the Plenean countryside, tried to eradicate this belief by cutting down these sacred oaks.

To counteract these monks and to prevent the cutting down of these oaks, the villagers built small niches in the trunks of the venerated trees, placed statues of the Virgin and used the natural cavities of the trunks for their obols.

One of these sacred oaks is still standing in Plénée-Jugon, at the place called Ville Hervy. At the bend of a path, the walker discovers this colossus of more than 12 m in height and 7,70 m in waist. Religious beliefs would have it that the Virgin appeared on a thorn next to the tree?

It is this tree which has just been awarded the title of "Remarkable Tree", jointly attributed by the General Council and Vivarmor Nature.

How old is it? No certainty, but it is believed to be more than 500 years old. A true Breton oak, grey and twisted, this ancestor has an incredible stature and commands respect with its gnarled trunk which shelters a statue of the Virgin and a cavity for obols, now blocked by an iron and padlocked urn.

It dictates the ancestral atmosphere of the place, astonishes, forces admiration and evokes the historical and legendary memories that are linked to it. Moreover, the presence of a spring with an old fountain-washhouse, below the tree, probably testifies to a sacredness linked to the tree and to water.

The presence of a source arranged with an old fountain / washhouse below the tree and a virgin inside the trunk probably testify to a sacredness linked to the tree and the water.

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