A Day On Wikipedia

The ”’Penfeld”'<ref>The d was added in the 17th century by a naval engineer influenced by the German word ”feld” – the name is masculine in the [[Breton language]].</ref>, ”Penfell” in [[Breton language|Breton]], is a 16km-long French coastal river<ref>[http://sandre.eaufrance.fr/app/chainage/courdo/htm/J334400A.php?cg=J334400A The Penfeld on the SANDRE site]</ref>. On its right bank has grown up the town of [[Brest, France|Brest]] in [[Finistère]].

==Course==
Its source is in the town of [[Gouesnou]]. It then passes through [[Bohars]] and [[Guilers]] (a hamlet bearing the river’s name) before flowing out into the [[roadstead of Brest]]. The Penfeld runs along the former course of the river [[Aulne]], shifted to the west by the opening of the [[Goulet de Brest|goulet]] of the [[roadstead of Brest]] by the [[interglacial period]]s of the [[Quaternary|Quaternary Era]]. This explains its depth, allowing deep-draught ships to go quite a way upstream, with tides running up it for up to 8 metres.

At Brest, the Penfeld is crossed by the [[Pont de l’Harteloire]] then, some way downstream, by the [[Pont de Recouvrance]], the largest vertical-lift bridge in Europe until it was de-throned by the [[Pont Gustave-Flaubert|pont levant de Rouen]] in 2007.

In its last kilometres, within embanked banks of 25 to 30m high, the Penfeld runs through the Brest naval base, and at its mouth (a site whose strategic importance has been recognised since antiquity) is a 15th century [[château de Brest|château fort]].

== See also ==
* [[Pont de l’Harteloire]]
* [[Pont National (Brest)|Pont National]] — [[Pont de Recouvrance]]
* [[Recouvrance (Brest)|Recouvrance]]
* [[Arsenal de Brest]]

== References ==
<references />

[[Category:Brest]]
[[Category:Rivers of France]]