Meneham, Coastal hamlet and open-air museum in Kerlouan, France
Meneham is a hamlet of Kerlouan in Finistère, restored between 2004 and 2009. Its guard house, the only building facing the sea, stands between two large granite formations; the other houses, thatched or slated, line the slope above the shore. About 1,000 m² of Camargue straw was laid on the roofs.
The corps de garde, Meneham's first building and the only one facing the sea, was probably built around 1756 under the Duc d'Aiguillon, not by Vauban as long thought. It housed Kerlouan militiamen, then customs officers from 1792, who moved into a barracks built in the early 1840s. From about 1840, small thatched rental houses were built for farming families; the village was deserted from the 1950s, the last inhabitant left in 2001, and restoration ran from 2004 to 2009.
The village reflects how people lived in Brittany through its workshops and exhibits that show local skills and traditions. You can see the daily life and work habits that shaped the community.
The site reception and museum spaces are open all year and admission is free; the Guard House, the bread ovens, the barracks and the Salou thatched houses hold the exhibits. The Bistrot des Légendes serves local dishes daily, and the Gîte d'étape in the houses with projecting gables has bunk beds in box beds. The barracks now houses four craft workshops.
The trapezoidal seaweed oven at Meneham measures 7 to 10 metres long and only 60 to 80 cm wide. Families gathered several seaweed varieties, dried them, piled them up and burned them here to produce soda blocks, which were then taken to a processing plant in Plouescat.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,464 contributors worldwide.
