Allée couverte dite La Roche Cadio
MonumentHidden Treasure
Allée couverte dite La Roche Cadio, located in Plédran (Département 22), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Plédran, Département 22, Bretagne
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 48.4668, -2.7378
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00089398
A Neolithic vestige buried deep in the Breton bocage, La Roche Cadio is a covered walkway listed as a Historic Monument that bears witness to a funerary spirituality dating back over 5,000 years.
History
Nestling in the bocage of the Côtes-d'Armor region, in Plédran, the Roche Cadio covered walkway is one of those silent monuments that nevertheless speak with a rare force. Built in the Neolithic period, probably between 3500 and 2500 BC, this collective burial site belongs to the large family of Armorican megaliths, a dense and diverse family that makes Brittany one of Europe's richest areas for prehistoric monuments. What sets Roche Cadio apart is, first and foremost, the raw power of its orthostats - the large, upright slabs of local stone - and the quality of its relative preservation in an agricultural landscape that has often treated the witnesses of the past with disdain. Unlike the corridor dolmens, the covered alley has an elongated plan, with no architectural distinction between chamber and corridor: you enter on the same level, in a single space designed to accommodate the deceased over several generations. The visitor experience is one of direct, unmediated contact with the Neolithic period. No museography, no barriers: the stone itself is the essential part of the message. Visitors can see the careful assembly of the lateral supports, the matching of the roof slabs still in place, and the logic of orientation specific to this type of monument, often aligned with significant solar or topographical axes. The natural setting reinforces this impression of age. As part of the hedged farmland surrounding Saint-Brieuc, the monument is set in a landscape of hedges, meadows and sunken lanes typical of the Goëllo region. The surrounding vegetation, often dense in summer, gives the visit an almost intimate atmosphere, conducive to contemplation. It's a site for the curious, prehistory enthusiasts and photographers in search of low-angled light at dawn or dusk.
Architecture
The Roche Cadio covered alleyway is typical of the morphology of Armorican Final Neolithic collective burials: an elongated corridor-chamber, delimited by two rows of orthostats in local stone - probably granite or schist from the Côtes-d'Armor bedrock - supporting a variable number of horizontal covering slabs. The overall length, typical for this type of monument in the region, is probably between six and twelve metres, with an interior width of one to two metres, in line with the standards seen on comparable covered walkways in the department. The construction work revealed advanced technical skills for the period: the orthostats were carefully selected for their flatness and planted in shallow trenches, stabilised with stone wedges. The roofing slabs, which can weigh several tonnes, rest directly on the vertical supports without any binding agent, demonstrating remarkable precision in installation. The entrance, generally facing the rising sun or east-south-east in Armorican megalithic traditions, provided ritual access to the burial space. The interior, devoid of any painted or engraved ornamentation unlike some of the great Armorican monuments such as Gavrinis, draws its strength solely from the mineral quality of the stones and the half-light they create. This absence of decoration is not an impoverishment: it is a feature of the architectural type of covered alleyway, designed as a functional space for depositing the dead rather than as an ornate sanctuary.
Related Figures
Bâtisseurs néolithiques anonymes (vers 3000-2500 av. J.-C.) — communautés agropastorales à l'origine de la constructionProsper Mérimée (1803-1870) — inspecteur général des Monuments historiques, initiateur du recensement des mégalithes bretons en FrancePaul du Châtellier (1833-1911) — archéologue breton qui contribua à l'inventaire et à l'étude des allées couvertes des Côtes-du-NordZacharie Le Rouzic (1864-1939) — fouilleur et conservateur des mégalithes armoricains, dont les méthodes influencèrent la préservation des sites comparablesAndré Malraux (1901-1976) — ministre des Affaires culturelles sous l'autorité duquel l'arrêté de classement fut signé en 1964
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Allée couverte dite La Roche Cadio located?
Allée couverte dite La Roche Cadio is located in Plédran, Département 22 department, Bretagne region, France.
Is Allée couverte dite La Roche Cadio open to visitors?
Allée couverte dite La Roche Cadio is currently closed to visitors.