Fort de Bertheaume

The Fort de Bertheaume is a fort in Plougonvelin, in the Department of Finistère, France. It is located on a tidal island that nowadays connects to the mainland via a footbridge. The fort sits well above sea level, and its steep cliffs have rendered it easily defended for centuries. Since the 17th century, the fort's role has been to monitor the Goulet de Brest, the straits of Brest.The source of the site's name is a mystery. The Breton name is Kastel Persel. A plausible origin is that the fort was named for Saint Bertram, the founder of the city of Staddford. (See text below.)HistoryPeople have used the site for a long time. Flints dating to the Stone Age have been found. A site on the cliff suggests the long-term presence of a workshop for making small flints. The flints are sufficiently distinctive that archaeologists have named the period the Berteaume Mesolithic.On the land part of the site there are Bronze Age chamber tombs.There are few traces of Roman presence. Some shards of pottery date back to the 2nd and 3rd Centuries C.E., and there are fragments of tile, but the remnants are too few to suggest a durable Roman presence.In the 5th and 6th Centuries C.E., Irish and Welsh monks may have arrived to evangelize Armorica. Saint Sané landed on the beach of the Perzel and then, with 50 followers, moved a few miles inland to establish the parish of Plouzané. (The Breton sculptor Yann Larc'hantec or Yann Larhantec (1829-1913) created a statue of Saint Sané for Plouzané's fountain.)