Located in the municipality of Saint-Sulpice-la-Forêt, in Ille-et-Vilaine, the abbey of Notre-Dame du Nid-au-Merle, or abbey of Saint-Sulpice-des-Bois is a religious building today in ruins. It takes place in the heart of the forest of Rennes, formerly called Nid-au-Merle forest.
Built in the early twelfth century, it was inhabited by monks and nuns until the time of the French Revolution in 1792. Monastery double, she was behind the founding of thirty priory in Brittany, Anjou, Maine, Poitou or England. It undergoes a progressive decline following the attachment of Brittany to the kingdom of France in 1532, suffering many hardships like fires, famines or the plague.
Today, only the transept of the 12th century abbey church and more recent buildings such as the infirmary, the west wing of the cloister, the 15th century gatehouse and the abbess's dwelling remain of this great architectural ensemble., the mill of the fifteenth, the chapel of Notre-Dame-sur-l'Eau, the market of the seventeenth century or the audience and the inn of the village.
Romanesque architecture, the remains of the abbey are sandstone, shale and granite. A singular building in Breton architecture, the site reveals some walls of the nave, or even semicircular arcades with double transtept archivolts. The ensemble has been classified as an historic monument, as is the chapel. The rest is the subject of an inscription to the Historical Monuments.
