geo.wikisort.org - Island

Île des Morts (Island of the Dead) is a 7-hectare island in the Bay of Roscanvel, to the south-west of the roadstead of Brest, between the Quélern peninsula and Île Longue. It is 26m above sea level at its highest point.

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (January 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Île des Morts (Finistère)]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|fr|Île des Morts (Finistère)}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

History

In 1720, the neighbouring island of Trébéron became a quarantine island or lazaret for lepers, with Île des Morts as its cemetery. During the 18th century, the arsenal at Brest was supplied with gunpowder from the powder-mills of Pont-de-Buis. Transported by boat, the gunpowder made a last stop at the île d'Arun, at the mouth of the River Aulne. However, the magazine on the île d'Arun was small and remote from Brest and was not convenient in the context of the Napoleonic Wars, with the British fleet blockading Brest. In 1808, Jean-Nicolas Trouille, director of the maritime works at Brest, decided to develop Île de Morts by adding powder magazines.[1] The rock-breaking works done by convicts from the Brest prison allowed him to level a plateau on which to build three 45m-long and 12m wide two-level powder-magazines (in which the use of metal was banned to avoid risk of explosion). In completing the magazines, he also built a mole out towards île Trébéron, several landing points and a barracks for the magazines' garrison.

In 1868, with the railways' arrival in Brest, the French Navy decided to build a new powder magazine at the Saint-Nicolas powder-factory, at Guipavas. Even so, the Île des Morts continued in use in both World Wars, during which time the metal "Decauville" road was built, which still survives. In 1960, the installations on the island were decommissioned and some years later the island became included in the protective perimeter around Île Longue – it is still closed to public access.

Sources

External links

• Poudrières de l'île des Morts (Inventaire général de Bretagne)
• Bretagne Magazine n°31 (November/December 2005-January 2006)

На других языках

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- [en] Île des Morts

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[fr] Île des Morts (Finistère)

L'Île des Morts est située dans la baie de Roscanvel, au sud-ouest de la rade de Brest, entre Roscanvel et l'Île Longue. À 300 mètres à l'est-nord-est se trouve l'île Trébéron.

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