Château de Kériolet

The Château de Kériolet stands a few kilometres north of Concarneau, a lavish Gothic Revival building from the 1860s that stands out among the more sober Breton architecture of the region. The building was designed by the architect Joseph Bigot for a Russian princess and is notable for combining Breton granite construction with Gothic decorative elements and a somewhat theatrical ambition. The result is genuinely impressive: towers, carved stone tracery, and an elaborate interior that reflects the wealth and taste of its original owner.

The château is open for guided visits in summer. The grounds include a garden and outbuildings; the setting, on a rise above farmland, gives good views towards the coast. It is about three kilometres from Concarneau by car or bicycle.

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A story
The château was built in the 1860s for the Russian Princess Zénaïde Narischkine-Youssoupoff, a wealthy Russian aristocrat who had married a French nobleman and settled in Brittany. She commissioned the architect Joseph Bigot to design a Gothic Revival fantasy, and the result is one of the most exuberant châteaux in the region — a Breton granite building with towers, turrets, and carved decoration that looks more like something out of a fairy tale than a typical French château. The princess's distant relative, Felix Yusupov, later became famous as one of the conspirators who murdered Rasputin.