Stream circuit n ° 63

Drouges is, with Fougères, Vitré, Moutiers, La Guerche and Chelun, a stage on the road to Compostela and the so-called Plantagenêts route, linking Mont-Saint-Michel to Angers via Pouancé. Since July 2015, his stopover gîte, located at the foot of the church, can accommodate pilgrims for the night. Located in the heart of the village, the origin of this building dates back to the 1963th century. Formerly the miller's house, it was transformed at the end of the 2012th century into a private school for boys, under the direction of the Brothers of Ploërmel. The school having closed in XNUMX, the building, owned by the Count de la Bretesche, for a time housed the theater, before being abandoned. In XNUMX, the idea of ​​a stopover lodge was launched. Reserved in priority for pilgrims, the lodging is also intended for hikers, people who rent the communal room and the inhabitants of Drouges.

Covering an area of ​​approximately 3000 ha, the Guerche forest, located on the territory of Rannée, is private. Numerous traces of embankments, ditches, grain silos, tools and bones of farm animals from the Gallic period, testify to agricultural activity in the heart of the current forest area, undoubtedly constituted in its current state. around the XNUMXth century. Property of the lords of La Guerche from the XNUMXth to the XNUMXth century, it has always known an intense double activity: agricultural with the acorn for pigs and cattle grazing; mining with blast furnaces from the Middle Ages, then blast furnace in Roche from the end of the XNUMXth XNUMXth century, powered by wood charcoal from the forest.

The Ardennes, an important tributary of the Seiche, is fed by multiple streams coming from the forest.