A view of Rue Saint-Malo towards Place du Général Leclerc in the old town of Lannion on a market day, Brittany, France
Some background information:
With its more than 20,000 residents, Lannion is an important town in the Breton department of Côtes-d'Armor in northwestern France. It is a subprefecture of the department, the capital of the traditional Trégor province and the center of an urban area of almost 60,000 inhabitants. The town is siutated on the Léguer river, whose estuary enters the English Channel in the Bay of Lannion just about 9 kilometres (5.6 miles) to the west of the commune.
Numerous megaliths in the area of Lannion bear witness to its ancient past. In 2014, archeologists found three large wooden and wattle houses at the Kervouric site, along with different artifacts such as ceramics, bracelets and flints from the Neolithic period, dating back 7,000 years. Coins and pottery fragments attest to a Gallic presence much later. The promontory of Yaudet, at the mouth of the Léguer river, served as both military defense and a stopover for Phoenician merchant ships, according to Phoenician coins found at the site.
During the Gallo-Roman period, the roads from Yaudet to the east inevitably passed through Lannion. Gallo-Roman villas were erected to establish agricultural exploitation during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. In the 5th century, Bretons from England and Wales immigrated as in their old homeland they were attacked by the Saxons. In 836, Yaudet, which already had become a vibrant fishing port, was destroyed by Vikings from Denmark.
The village of Lannion was first mentioned in a document in 1154. From the 13th to the 15th century, during Brittany's independence, Lannion developed into a town. As the Léguer river was an easy penetration route for invaders, the commune was equipped with a castle in the 13th century to protect the local merchants. In 1346, during the Breton War of Succession, Lannion, which sided with the French king, was conquered and burned down by the English. However, it was reconstructed quickly and around 1350, a first bridge crossing the Léguer river was built.
After cessation of military action, a flourishing maritime trade developed with England, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. Around 1550, maritime traffic expanded to the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea, with ships from Lannion sailing to Italy and Riga. At the end of the 16th century, the religious wars also reached Brittany. As Lannion had declared allegiance to the Protestant King Henry IV, it was conquered and burned down four times by the Catholic Spaniards. When peace was established by the Edict of Nantes in 1598, only the church, the prison, a few towers of the city walls and two stone houses remained standing.
After the town had been rebuilt again, it became the administrative capital of the Trégor province. During the reign of King Louis XIV (the so-called "Sun King") coastal and river navigation flourished. But when the wars with England broke out again, maritime traffic was shifted away from the English Channel to the Bay of Biscay beginning in 1688. Nevertheless, the population grew to about 3,000 people, and the city expanded beyond its old boundaries.
At the beginning of the 18th century, Lannion and its port experienced economic growth once again. But in the second half of the century, wars with England made a great impact on the town and brought poverty as well as misery. To protect maritime traffic, the number of cannon emplacements along the coast was increased and even church bells were melted down to build cannons. After the French Revolution, Lannion became the main town of one of the newly created arrondissements and the seat of a district court.
During the First French Empire, Lannion flourished again. Due to the great demand for food and fabric for the armies, the merchants from Lannion were able to built numerous new houses. However, trade gradually shifted from the sea to the inland regions. In 1881, the railroad reached the city. It brought coke for the local gasworks, enabling street lighting with gas lamps, but at the same time a lot of young people began to migrate by train towards Paris. Hence, the population decreased and In the center numerous buildings, including the old market hall, were demolished.
But Lannion experienced another revival with the emergence of seaside tourism along the Brittany coast at the end of the 19th century. Until the construction of the coastal road between Trégastel and Trébeurden in 1929, Lannion was the central point for tourism on the Côte de Granit Rose (in English: "Pink Granite Coast"). During the German occupation in World War II, Lannion became a frontline city against Great Britain. To be able to bomb the southwest of England, the German occupiers extensively expanded Lannion airfield and along the coast, defence works were erected as part of the Atlantic Wall.
In the post-war period, Lannion became the starting point of a transatlantic submarine cable, which brought telecommunications industry and population growth. As a result, the city was merged with four other municipalities to form "Grand Lannion" in 1961. Today, Lannion is one of the land points for the transatlantic Apollo fiber optic cable. Furthermore, the town is a large French telecommunications research center with several firms such as Nokia and Orange operating there.