Published in 1950, this is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.
Jersey Our Island: Methodists, Mermaids and Music – Part 3
by Sidney Bisson
In 1787 John Wesley braved the Channel in `a small sloop' to encourage his followers in Guernsey and Jersey. Possibly out of respect for his grey hairs (he was eighty-four at the time) the opponents of Methodism held their hand at his meetings. He preached to large crowds without interruption, with Brackenbury acting as interpreter. What is even more surprising is that Dr. Coke, who also visited Jersey to further the Methodist cause, was invited by the Rector to preach in the Parish Church of St. Helier. And in 1791 Jersey sent a Methodist missionary to France.
Just when it seemed that the worst of the opposition had been overcome, a new reign of terror started. The Methodists had not objected to compulsory militia service, but now a system of weekly drills on Sundays was introduced, which they regarded as a profanation of the Sabbath.
by Sidney Bisson
In 1787 John Wesley braved the Channel in `a small sloop' to encourage his followers in Guernsey and Jersey. Possibly out of respect for his grey hairs (he was eighty-four at the time) the opponents of Methodism held their hand at his meetings. He preached to large crowds without interruption, with Brackenbury acting as interpreter. What is even more surprising is that Dr. Coke, who also visited Jersey to further the Methodist cause, was invited by the Rector to preach in the Parish Church of St. Helier. And in 1791 Jersey sent a Methodist missionary to France.
Just when it seemed that the worst of the opposition had been overcome, a new reign of terror started. The Methodists had not objected to compulsory militia service, but now a system of weekly drills on Sundays was introduced, which they regarded as a profanation of the Sabbath.
When they asked to be excused, the authorities replied that absentees would be fined or imprisoned. Dozens of Methodists refused to pay fines and were sent to gaol. But they could not be kept there indefinitely at the public expense, so the States passed a law inflicting the penalty of deportation on those who refused to do full military service and hurriedly sent it to George III for confirmation. Meanwhile the holding of Methodist services was prohibited and the English minister was expelled.
The progress of Methodism in Jersey might have been very different had it not been for a curious circumstance. In spite of their scruples, the Methodist community had responded to an appeal by Pitt and collected a sum of money towards the expenses of England's war with France. This the States had refused to accept, and it was now decided to use it to fight for freedom of worship. Legal advice was taken, and a deputation headed by Dr. Coke was received by the King in Council. George III not only refused to sanction the proposed new law but emphasised his displeasure by forwarding his veto to the Governor by the hand of Coke. After this, the persecutions gradually ceased.
The progress of Methodism in Jersey might have been very different had it not been for a curious circumstance. In spite of their scruples, the Methodist community had responded to an appeal by Pitt and collected a sum of money towards the expenses of England's war with France. This the States had refused to accept, and it was now decided to use it to fight for freedom of worship. Legal advice was taken, and a deputation headed by Dr. Coke was received by the King in Council. George III not only refused to sanction the proposed new law but emphasised his displeasure by forwarding his veto to the Governor by the hand of Coke. After this, the persecutions gradually ceased.
It seems odd to find the Methodists building the first of their many chapels in this remote corner of the island. St. Ouen's has a local reputation perhaps undeserved for being the most backward of the twelve parishes, and the old-fashioned St. Ouennais is always a figure of fun in the island's literature. But it was not the central body of Methodists that decided to build a chapel here. The land was presented by a supporter in the parish and the cost of the building defrayed by a district subscription. Within the next few years we find the same thing happening in many parts of the island, each district building its own chapel as funds permitted, usually on land donated by a member. It may have been just luck that the St. Ouennais acquired their plot before any of their fellow members. With the steady growth of Methodism the chapel soon had to be enlarged and later replaced by the present enormous stucco building. Granite would have blended better with the bleak surroundings.
A winding lane bounded by dry walls leads to the twin manor houses of Vinchelez. The dry wall is a particular feature of the Jersey roadside. It is usually backed and often overtopped by a great bank of earth. Monotony is avoided by varied treatment. Here the banks are carpeted with grass. A little further on, trees planted on them meet to form a leafy tunnel. Round the corner grass verges give the narrow lane an air of splendid dignity. Everywhere wild flowers and ferns abound in the crevices between the stones.
The fief of Vinchelez was originally one of the largest in the island. Its division led indirectly to a protracted quarrel between the Dumaresqs and the de Carterets, Seigneurs of St. Ouen, whose arms may be seen one above the other over the old arched gateway of Vinchelez de Bas. The Dumaresqs, who held this manor by direct inheritance, also laid claim to Vinchelez de Haut.
The de Carterets disputed this on the strength of a deed of gift executed by Katherine de Vinchelez in favour of her godson, Richard de Carteret. First the Dumaresqs, then Richard, obtained possession of Vinchelez de Haut. But even his marriage to one of the Dumaresq daughters did not effect a settlement, and the feud was kept up by their children. Eventually, a hundred years later, both sides agreed to arbitration. As a result the status quo was to be maintained. But not for long. The male line of the Dumaresqs becoming extinct, the property passed to a daughter. Mindful of grandfather Richard's example, one of the young de Carterets promptly married her, giving his family the final triumph of seeing the two fiefs re-united.
Both houses are delightfully situated in wooded hollows separated by the famous Vinchelez Lane. In the days of horse- drawn `excursion cars' (before holiday makers demanded bays!) this had the reputation of being Jersey's loveliest beauty spot. Another lane on the west side of Vinchelez de Bas leads to what the Ordnance Survey map calls a tumulus. All I found was a wilderness of gorse, but it was worth walking down the lane for the lovely unspoilt view that presented itself at the end. If you admire rugged cliff scenery the north coast of the island is always attractive from any point of view. To-day, from this spot, the attraction was overpowering.
It is not so much the combination of colours as the living texture beneath them that takes the breath away. The blue of the sea, calm yet incessantly restless; the cliffs, in contrast, brown and solid. Above them a shaggy green fleece of gorse and bracken, shot with threads of gold. It is a Fairyland beauty that makes me feel like an intruder. At any moment I expect to see a mermaid swim out of her cave and sit on a rock to comb her golden hair. That is all it needs to complete the picture.
A winding lane bounded by dry walls leads to the twin manor houses of Vinchelez. The dry wall is a particular feature of the Jersey roadside. It is usually backed and often overtopped by a great bank of earth. Monotony is avoided by varied treatment. Here the banks are carpeted with grass. A little further on, trees planted on them meet to form a leafy tunnel. Round the corner grass verges give the narrow lane an air of splendid dignity. Everywhere wild flowers and ferns abound in the crevices between the stones.
The fief of Vinchelez was originally one of the largest in the island. Its division led indirectly to a protracted quarrel between the Dumaresqs and the de Carterets, Seigneurs of St. Ouen, whose arms may be seen one above the other over the old arched gateway of Vinchelez de Bas. The Dumaresqs, who held this manor by direct inheritance, also laid claim to Vinchelez de Haut.
The de Carterets disputed this on the strength of a deed of gift executed by Katherine de Vinchelez in favour of her godson, Richard de Carteret. First the Dumaresqs, then Richard, obtained possession of Vinchelez de Haut. But even his marriage to one of the Dumaresq daughters did not effect a settlement, and the feud was kept up by their children. Eventually, a hundred years later, both sides agreed to arbitration. As a result the status quo was to be maintained. But not for long. The male line of the Dumaresqs becoming extinct, the property passed to a daughter. Mindful of grandfather Richard's example, one of the young de Carterets promptly married her, giving his family the final triumph of seeing the two fiefs re-united.
Both houses are delightfully situated in wooded hollows separated by the famous Vinchelez Lane. In the days of horse- drawn `excursion cars' (before holiday makers demanded bays!) this had the reputation of being Jersey's loveliest beauty spot. Another lane on the west side of Vinchelez de Bas leads to what the Ordnance Survey map calls a tumulus. All I found was a wilderness of gorse, but it was worth walking down the lane for the lovely unspoilt view that presented itself at the end. If you admire rugged cliff scenery the north coast of the island is always attractive from any point of view. To-day, from this spot, the attraction was overpowering.
It is not so much the combination of colours as the living texture beneath them that takes the breath away. The blue of the sea, calm yet incessantly restless; the cliffs, in contrast, brown and solid. Above them a shaggy green fleece of gorse and bracken, shot with threads of gold. It is a Fairyland beauty that makes me feel like an intruder. At any moment I expect to see a mermaid swim out of her cave and sit on a rock to comb her golden hair. That is all it needs to complete the picture.
I turned my back at last and walked towards Grosnez, turning aside at Portinfer to peep at St. George's Church. It is obviously a modern building, and of such a frigid appearance that I was not tempted to go inside. Children going home from school chattered to one another in English, I noticed, unlike their parents working in the fields who still prefer to gossip in Jersey-French. I spoke to one of the little boys in our native language and was met with a blank stare. Not many of the new generation are bi-lingual like their fathers. Incidentally, apart from a couple of middle-aged women on bicycles, these were the only human beings I met in the course of my five-mile walk. And they say that Jersey is overcrowded in summer !
There are some very attractive farmhouses in this neighbour- hood, some of great age, judging by the thickness of their walls. Honeysuckle, hydrangeas, fuchsias, and rambler roses riot in their gardens. But here and there a farm has tried to modernise itself by putting on a face of stucco, and only succeeded in looking hideously out of place.
As I approached Grosnez the road seemed to be getting wilder. Gorse and bracken topped the dry walls instead of grass and trees. Then of a sudden came a field of oats surrounded by a straggly privet hedge growing behind a granite wall. The illusion of wildness was shattered. But only for a moment. Passing between two sturdy farmhouses, the last outposts of civilisation, I came on the open plateau of Les Landes, where not a tree or a wall stand to break the winds that blow in from the North Atlantic.
A rough path through the low gorse and heather leads to Grosnez Castle the castle without a history. It was almost certainly built in the early part of the fourteenth century, when Jersey was a tempting hunting ground for French marauders. Two hundred years later, on Leland's map of the Channel Islands, it is already marked as a ruin (castrum Grosnes dirutum).
Arguments have been advanced to show that it was demolished during Du Guesclin's raid on the island in 1373, yet there is a strong tradition that Philip de Carteret held out for a time in Grosnez when the French captured Jersey in 1461. Even the evidence of Leland's map is not conclusive, for Jersey's leading military historian (Major N. V. L. Rybot) recently had an en- largement made of the drawing of the castle on Popinjay's `Platte' of 1563, which clearly shows the towers to be still standing. Only a single pointed gateway of weatherworn granite stands today, overlooking what is left of the moat. Behind it can be traced the foundations of the original walls.
St. Maglorius (locally known as St. Mannelier) is traditionally supposed to have landed here in the sixth century and built a monastery. He could hardly have chosen a more difficult place, even for an unopposed landing. On three sides of the castle site the cliffs slope steeply down to the sea, two hundred feet below. The east side is a perpendicular mass of rock, like the wall of some mediaeval cathedral, complete with natural gargoyles over- hanging. And was it my imagination or was it really the sound of joyful music coming from within?
It could hardly be the cri de la mer, which the fishermen will tell you can be heard in these parts when a storm is brewing. For that must be a mournful sound. Imagine forty families ready to embark for a fresh life in a new land. They have been chosen by Helier de Carteret, Seigneur of St. Ouen, to go to Sark, which Queen Elizabeth has given him authority to colonise. For the older people sadness in breaking off old ties is mingled with hope of better days. For the children the sea journey is the first step in a glorious adventure. It is also, alas, the last. A sudden storm, and one of the ships, the one which carries most of the children, is blown on to the Pierres de Lecq, one of the three reefs which guard the northern approach to the island. All the children perished. It is their plaintive drowning cries that can be heard at the approach of stormy weather.
This wild remote spot is certainly one to stir the imagination, but I must admit I was considerably shaken when the sounds grew so loud that there was no possibility of a mistake. It was an organ. I was wondering whether the sun had been too much for me when the melody changed to one I knew. There is a holiday camp at Plemont, about a mile away. It must have been its loudspeakers and no ghostly agency that wafted the sounds of `I'll close my eyes and make believe it's you' over the still waters.
The chief attraction at Plemont unless you find a holiday camp an attraction lies in a series of lofty caves. The largest is said to be a hundred and fifty yards long and a hundred feet high, Dut I did not feel inclined to brave the loudspeakers merely to check the guide-book's measurements.
Of greater interest, though less accessible, is the Cotte a la Chevre, a cave on a narrow headland between Ple'mont and Grosnez. This cave is not, as might be expected, at sea level, but a quarter of the way up the cliff, indicating that the level of the land must have been at some time about sixty feet lower than at present. Here, thousands of years ago, a family of the stone age had its home and hunted mammoth and reindeer. The jawbone of a deer was found during excavations, as well as a considerable quantity of flint implements.
According to Godfrey a spring near here was the mediaeval forerunner of television. When the new moon fell on a Sunday you came to the spring at dusk and bathed your eyes with its waters. Such were its magical properties that it gave you the power to see through the thickest stone wall. But only for a limited period. When the moon started to wane the power left you, and you had to wait for another Sunday new moon before being able to satisfy your Nosy-Parkerish instincts.
I suspect the story is one of Godfrey's inventions. I should have suspected him of inventing the spring too, if it were not marked on the map. There even seems to be more than one spring, for the map maker has written Fontaines Martin in the plural. But a diligent search failed to find even one. Perhaps they bubble up unseen beneath the gorse, waiting to be re-discovered by some government `snooper' who fancies the island for a holiday.
There are some very attractive farmhouses in this neighbour- hood, some of great age, judging by the thickness of their walls. Honeysuckle, hydrangeas, fuchsias, and rambler roses riot in their gardens. But here and there a farm has tried to modernise itself by putting on a face of stucco, and only succeeded in looking hideously out of place.
As I approached Grosnez the road seemed to be getting wilder. Gorse and bracken topped the dry walls instead of grass and trees. Then of a sudden came a field of oats surrounded by a straggly privet hedge growing behind a granite wall. The illusion of wildness was shattered. But only for a moment. Passing between two sturdy farmhouses, the last outposts of civilisation, I came on the open plateau of Les Landes, where not a tree or a wall stand to break the winds that blow in from the North Atlantic.
A rough path through the low gorse and heather leads to Grosnez Castle the castle without a history. It was almost certainly built in the early part of the fourteenth century, when Jersey was a tempting hunting ground for French marauders. Two hundred years later, on Leland's map of the Channel Islands, it is already marked as a ruin (castrum Grosnes dirutum).
Arguments have been advanced to show that it was demolished during Du Guesclin's raid on the island in 1373, yet there is a strong tradition that Philip de Carteret held out for a time in Grosnez when the French captured Jersey in 1461. Even the evidence of Leland's map is not conclusive, for Jersey's leading military historian (Major N. V. L. Rybot) recently had an en- largement made of the drawing of the castle on Popinjay's `Platte' of 1563, which clearly shows the towers to be still standing. Only a single pointed gateway of weatherworn granite stands today, overlooking what is left of the moat. Behind it can be traced the foundations of the original walls.
St. Maglorius (locally known as St. Mannelier) is traditionally supposed to have landed here in the sixth century and built a monastery. He could hardly have chosen a more difficult place, even for an unopposed landing. On three sides of the castle site the cliffs slope steeply down to the sea, two hundred feet below. The east side is a perpendicular mass of rock, like the wall of some mediaeval cathedral, complete with natural gargoyles over- hanging. And was it my imagination or was it really the sound of joyful music coming from within?
It could hardly be the cri de la mer, which the fishermen will tell you can be heard in these parts when a storm is brewing. For that must be a mournful sound. Imagine forty families ready to embark for a fresh life in a new land. They have been chosen by Helier de Carteret, Seigneur of St. Ouen, to go to Sark, which Queen Elizabeth has given him authority to colonise. For the older people sadness in breaking off old ties is mingled with hope of better days. For the children the sea journey is the first step in a glorious adventure. It is also, alas, the last. A sudden storm, and one of the ships, the one which carries most of the children, is blown on to the Pierres de Lecq, one of the three reefs which guard the northern approach to the island. All the children perished. It is their plaintive drowning cries that can be heard at the approach of stormy weather.
This wild remote spot is certainly one to stir the imagination, but I must admit I was considerably shaken when the sounds grew so loud that there was no possibility of a mistake. It was an organ. I was wondering whether the sun had been too much for me when the melody changed to one I knew. There is a holiday camp at Plemont, about a mile away. It must have been its loudspeakers and no ghostly agency that wafted the sounds of `I'll close my eyes and make believe it's you' over the still waters.
The chief attraction at Plemont unless you find a holiday camp an attraction lies in a series of lofty caves. The largest is said to be a hundred and fifty yards long and a hundred feet high, Dut I did not feel inclined to brave the loudspeakers merely to check the guide-book's measurements.
Of greater interest, though less accessible, is the Cotte a la Chevre, a cave on a narrow headland between Ple'mont and Grosnez. This cave is not, as might be expected, at sea level, but a quarter of the way up the cliff, indicating that the level of the land must have been at some time about sixty feet lower than at present. Here, thousands of years ago, a family of the stone age had its home and hunted mammoth and reindeer. The jawbone of a deer was found during excavations, as well as a considerable quantity of flint implements.
According to Godfrey a spring near here was the mediaeval forerunner of television. When the new moon fell on a Sunday you came to the spring at dusk and bathed your eyes with its waters. Such were its magical properties that it gave you the power to see through the thickest stone wall. But only for a limited period. When the moon started to wane the power left you, and you had to wait for another Sunday new moon before being able to satisfy your Nosy-Parkerish instincts.
I suspect the story is one of Godfrey's inventions. I should have suspected him of inventing the spring too, if it were not marked on the map. There even seems to be more than one spring, for the map maker has written Fontaines Martin in the plural. But a diligent search failed to find even one. Perhaps they bubble up unseen beneath the gorse, waiting to be re-discovered by some government `snooper' who fancies the island for a holiday.
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