Quimperlé

Quimperlé stands at the meeting of the Ellé and Isole rivers, which join to form the Laïta in southern Brittany. Its lower town developed around the Benedictine abbey of Sainte-Croix and the church of Saint-Colomban. The abbey was founded around the middle of the eleventh century and became a major religious landholder. Above the valley, the upper town grew around Saint-Michel church and its market square; the church was built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Across the Ellé, a Dominican house founded in 1264 encouraged the growth of the Bourgneuf suburb. A bridge connected it to the older town in 1643. The rivers brought Quimperlé access to the coast, but the low-lying historic centre was also exposed to flooding.