Notre-Dame-des-Carmes, Gothic church in Pont-l'Abbé, France.
Notre-Dame-des-Carmes is a Gothic church in Pont-l'Abbé whose nave and single north aisle are covered by wooden barrel vaults, making it a pseudobasilica of Dutch and English type. Two 15th-century Flamboyant rose windows, one above the west portal and one in the chevet, measure 7.20 metres across. The chevet rests on an arcade of eight trefoiled lancets.
The Carmelites founded their fourth convent in Brittany at Pont-l'Abbé in 1383, on the right bank of the river, with the church completed by 1411. The tower was added only in 1603, since mendicant churches traditionally had none. In 1880 the convent cloister, dated around 1444, was dismantled and rebuilt in Quimper at the Lycée Chaptal.
The 17th-century stone altarpiece in the north-side Sainte-Anne chapel survives after the 19th-century decoration was stripped out. Two wooden altarpieces were given by guilds: the shoemakers' to Saints Crépin and Crépinien in the Saint-Jacques chapel, the apothecaries' to Saints Côme and Damien. Since 2016 an oratory honours Vincent L'Hénoret, martyred in Laos in 1961 and born in Pont-l'Abbé.
The organ sits high on the right of the choir; it was built by Maison Beuchet-Debierre in 1966-1968, enlarged by Maison Dargassies-Gonzalez in 1990 to 43 stops on three manuals and pedal, and keeps pipes from the 1666 instrument. The church is a classified monument historique since 1914. The west facade faces the Croix de l'église, a cross standing just outside.
The slate helmet-shaped bell tower was constructed in 1603 and represents an unusual architectural element in the Lower Brittany region. This distinctive roof sets it apart from other Gothic churches in the surrounding area.
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