Grand Menhir Brise

Also known as:
Grand Menhir Brisé, Men er Hroeg and Men-er-Groach
Latitude:
47° 34' 17.25 N
Longitude:
2° 57' 0.62 W
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Images

Image of Grand Menhir Brise by costaexpress

Once stood very close to the equally ‘giant’ Er Grah Cairn, assuming it didn’t break as they tried to erect it some 5000 years ago

costaexpress
costaexpress Feb 18, 2017
Image of Grand Menhir Brise by ryaner

Open to debate, but the earthquake theory seems to me to be the best.

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner Jul 30, 2016
Image of Grand Menhir Brise by ryaner

“In its unbroken state the menhir would have measured 20.3 metres.” Aubrey Burl, Megalithic Brittany, page 135

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner Jul 30, 2016
Image of Grand Menhir Brise by postman

Down but not out, one of the stars of megalithic Brittany.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Aug 23, 2014
Image of Grand Menhir Brise by postman

The line of cairn-likes mark where the alignment of menhirs stood, all but one is gone now, (and not all of that one remains) gone to build the local and some not so local dolmens.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Aug 23, 2014
Image of Grand Menhir Brise by postman

Clearly that bit fits on there, but the big piece has been turned round.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Aug 23, 2014
Image of Grand Menhir Brise by postman

And that’s not all of it, some of it got taken away to be used constructing dolmen.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Aug 23, 2014
Image of Grand Menhir Brise by Moth

Tuesday 12 April 2005 Not the most flattering view, but really gets across the colossalness of the thing

Image credit: Tim Clark
Moth
Moth Nov 11, 2009
Image of Grand Menhir Brise by Jane

You’re not meant to walk on the grass but I did anyway because I wanted to get up close and feel the scale of it.

Image credit: Moth Clark
Jane
Jane Aug 3, 2007
Image of Grand Menhir Brise by Kammer

Taken Summer 1996: A photo of Le Grand Menhir Brisé, taken with a super wide angle lense to try and fit it all in.

Image credit: Simon Marshall
Kammer
Kammer Jul 29, 2007

Articles

Grand Menhir Brise

markj99
markj99 Sep 24, 2023

Visited 14.09.23

Grand Menhir Brise is one of Locmariaquer’s big three sites. It is only accessible via the Site des Megalithes Visitor Centre for 6 euros. To be fair, there are three impressive monuments, unrestricted visiting time and free parking so what’s not to like?

Grand Menhir Brise consists of four massive recumbent stones which are though to have been parts of one of the largest ever menhirs, measuring c. 20 metres long. There is speculation as to whether the Grand Menhir Brise either broke on erection or as a result of an earthquake or was deliberately toppled. There is archaeological evidence of 19 socket holes forming a giant stone row, with Grand Menhir Brise as an end stone. Whatever the reality, there is no doubt that the Grand Menhir Brise is an impressive antiquity.

Grand Menhir Brise

postman
postman Aug 27, 2014

From Mane Rutual I walked up the road to the gate where you can look over it at the three marvels here, Er Grah, Table Des Marchands and Le Grand Menhir Brise. From the gate the big broken stone is tantalisingly close, there was no one around, so, like a very bad boy I jumped over the gate in a trice and had the trio to myself.
If I’d paid to go in I wouldn’t have been able to walk on the grass, touch the stone, or even have a good look around it. But as it’s after closing time there would be no getting into the Marchants table.
It’s all about give and take, ive given Brittany over a thousand pounds, I wanna see the stones and no little gate is gonna stop me. Am I a bad ass or just determined?

Le Grand Menhir Brise was the biggest standing stone in France, possibly in Europe, only Egyptian obelisks are taller, but I don’t really class them as standing stones. If you know of a bigger one please let me know. It may have stood 14 meters high, if it ever stood at all. Some parts of the broken stone have been removed to be capstones for nearby and not so nearby dolmens.
The four remaining pieces are most impressive, and no matter where you are in the complex your eye keeps being drawn back to the great broken stone.
Three pieces are still in such a position that you can see they still lie where they fell, but the fourth and biggest piece has somehow twisted around and away from the other three. It is difficult to imagine where the parts that were removed came from as the four parts seem to fit together.
It is a most perplexing and mysterious thing. Oh, and it’s very very big.

Grand Menhir Brise

Jane
Jane Aug 3, 2007

Grand Menhir Brisé (GMB) is almost too vast to comprehend. After we arrived off the ferry in St Malô the day before we swung by the Menhir du Champs Dolent at Dol-de-Bretagne and I thought that – at 32 feet tall – was a big one.

Turns out that compared to GMB, it’s a tiddler.

But GMB no longer stands. It lies fallen and broken in four mammoth pieces on the manicured grass to be marvelled at in the same way as one would view the body of a dead, beached whale. I was aware that a ‘fragment’ of this great broken stone had been carted off and reused to build Gavrinis which I would see later. So large is this stone that some wonder if it was ever vertical.

Folklore

Grand Menhir Brise
Standing Stone / Menhir
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Apr 24, 2008

La glissade appears rarely to have been practised on true megaliths, for the reason that they rarely present the inclination necessary to its accomplishment. It is, however, said at Loc- mariaker, in the Morbihan, that formerly every young girl who wished to marry within the year, on the night of the first of May got on the large menhir, turned up her skirts and let herself slide from top to bottom. The menhir mentioned was the largest one known; but it is now broken in four pieces which lie on the ground; according to most authors it was still standing at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This custom, which could not be followed when the stone stood vertical, twelve meters in height, is, then, relatively modern, yet it is possible that the young girls of the locality have come to follow, on the pieces, an ancient custom which was formerly held on some natural stone in the neighborhood.

The Worship of Stones in France
Paul Sébillot and Joseph D. McGuire
American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Jan. – Mar., 1902), pp. 76-107

Sites within 20km of Grand Menhir Brise

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