Around

For nearly a thousand years, everything has been done to keep a fire burning at the Pointe de Saint-Mathieu. In the Middle Ages, well before the construction of a lighthouse on this rocky outcrop, the monks maintained a beacon at the top of the Abbey to guide sailors at the entrance to the Brest gully and in the perilous Four channel. Many innovations were needed to animate this flame through winds and tides! When the old tower of the Abbey threatened to collapse, the Navy had a lighthouse built nearby: higher, more powerful, more modern. Inaugurated in 1835, electrified in 1932 and remote-controlled since 2005, the Saint-Mathieu lighthouse crosses its beam at more than 40 km thanks to its Fresnel lenses. This particularly powerful device is just 200 years old!