Discover Lost Jersey - Part 4

I came across an edition of "Discover Jersey" , a guide book written in 1993 by Terry Palmer - that's 28 years ago. While the basic history remains the same, the tourism sites have seen a massive fall, and I thought it would be interesting to explore this guide - and my memories of those places, if I visited them, over the next weeks. The latter are in italics. How much we've lost!

Sunset Nurseries

Sunset Nurseries is aptly named as it faces the setting sun across the middle of St Ouen’s Bay, and on clear evenings you can see the earth's shadow climb the hills behind. As evidence of the exposed site, the business had 18 tons of glass broken by the hurricane which struck south—east England on 16 October 1987.

The postcard from the nurseries shows Miss Battle of Flowers 1977, Diane Le Bot, who came from St Brelade. Many thanks to contributors on Facebook for identifying her.

This is a commercial nursery growing carnations in eight glass houses and alstroemeria in another, with the added attraction of a tropical aviary. trout pools, and a restaurant serving strawberries and cream for as long a season as possible. Open daily 1000—1700 except winter weekends, so you must see the sun go down from outside the gate.

I used to enjoy visits to Sunset Nurseries with my children when they were younger, it was a nice rest break as they had quite a decent little café for snacks. At one time there were also sand sculptures there, and it was also handy to park for a visit to the nearby prehistoric site of Les Trois Rocques.

Alas, it was demolished. The planning application said:

Sunset Nurseries, La Route du Moulin, St. Peter. Demolish existing nursery, glass houses and staff block. Construct 6 bed dwelling with landscaping to Field 28. New access from La Route de la Marette. 

The sun set on the Sunset Nurseries :-(

St Ouen's Bay Defences

The British and German defences along the four-mile (6.5km) stretch of St Ouen's Bay oddly called Five Mile Road. extend into the parishes of St Brelade. St Peter and St Ouen itself. The British built most of the towers.

In the early 19th cent. anticipating an invasion by the French. with Tower No 2 being the work of Sir James Kempt, master-general of ordnance. from whom it was named in 1834, The Kempt Tower is open May-Sep Tues-Sun 1400-1700, and Apr & Oct Thur and Sun only. free, mounting a static exhibition showing how the Island protected itself against invasion.

The tower is still there, but it is now a Jersey Heritage holiday let rather than a visitor attraction.

I only visited this once, and remember distinctly how damp parts of it were. Let's hope they solved that problem for the self-catering tourists!

Shell House.

When you drive out of St Aubin on the steep A13, you cannot fail to see Shell House. in truth a bungalow, whose owner has spent more than 30 years braiding shell covered terraces in his garden If you manage to park you are invited to leave a donation for charity.

I used to see this every day on my way home from work, and then after the owner died, they left it to the National Trust who decided that it had no heritage value whatsoever, and flogged it off to a developer, who has yet to develop anything on the site. But meanwhile, all the painstaking work over 30 years was consigned to the rubbish bin of history. This is the same National Trust who saw no reason in preserving a lovely cottage in Trinity because it had modern dormer windows in one side.