The Islets of the Channel. Dendy Walter Cooper
of vraich and laminaria and asperococcus are profusely strewn. These algæ are gathered and dried for fuel, at the legal harvest time, in March and July, the harvest home being profusely supplied with vraich cakes and bread. The digging and blasting of the quarries of black stone, and the tiny windmills that drain these excavations, give life to the scene as we approach St. Sampson’s.
Martello towers crown several of the brows, and there is within very old walls to the left a little remnant now styled Ivy Castle. It is not worth the visit, although it is a bit of a castle, built by Robert of Normandy, contemporary with that of Jerbourg.
We are close to the archæological gems of the islet, – the churches of St. Sampson and Braye la Ville, or du Val, within a mile of each other, at each end of a flat alluvial isthmus. The first is dated 1111, its name being derived from Sampson, Bishop of St. David’s, consecrated Bishop of Dol under the Duke of Brittany, and endowed with these islets by Childebert of France. He came to Guernsey, and built a chapel here. There are three aisles, with massive pillars and Norman arches; the old gallery-loft and the tower are in exquisite antique. It is profusely covered by most luxuriant ivy with enormous stems.
The steeple of Braye du Val, dated 1117, is very eccentric, immense granitic blocks lying before the belfry-door.
At low water we cross the harbour of St. Sampson’s, Vale, or Du Val, on stepping-stones. The Castle on the mound was erected as a defence against the incursion of the Danes, and then called St. Michael’s, or the Castle of the Archangel. There is a legend imputing its erection chiefly to a band of military monks, who, in a sort of holy pilgrimage, made a descent on the islet.
A Druidical carn lies on the hill, half a mile northward on the left of the road. There are twelve upright and three immense horizontal stones. The largest of these, fifteen feet long and a yard thick, rests on four uprights, the second only on two, the third on the second and the edge of the pit, so that six uprights are unoccupied. From this brow there is a perspective view of the chief objects in the islet, Alderney lying on the horizon to the north-east.
Forts Doyle and Pembroke are on the northern point on either side of Lancresse Bay, the bay of “Anchorage,” in which the Duke of Normandy landed in a storm, as he was sailing over to England to Edward the Confessor.
The shores and bays are here flat and dull; as we leave the Race Course and pass Portinger and Long Port, the upheaved blocks of gneiss increase in number and proportion. In Cobo Bay stands Le Grande Roche; its veins of rose-coloured feldspar are unique. Here and there we have picturesque glimpses – one of the flat islet of Lihou, once hallowed by a priory built in the reign of Henry I., the grouping of cots and walls still in bold relief. The outlying rocklets are profuse between Le Grand Havre on the north and the bold blocks of Les Hanois or Hanoreaux off Pleinmont Point, the west corner of the islet; they completely stud the bays of Port du Fer, Saline, Long Point, Great Cobo, Vazon, Perelle, Le Rie, Rocquaine, the widest bay in Guernsey. It was in Vazon Bay that the Spaniard Yvon de Galles descended and fought the battle in which the islander Jean de Lesoc performed feats of great valour. The site of this conflict is still named La Bataille.
In contrast to this record of history is a fairy legend. In this bay of Vazon was “Les Creux des Fées,” a cavern haunted by the little people. Why and when and how we know not, but they conquered Guernsey!
A sterile sameness reigns around Pleinmont Point and Mount Herault and Creux Marie, a cavern 200 feet deep, and Le Corbière, until we reach Point la Maye. In the vicinity are the old village churches of St. Peter in the Wood, of the æra of Henry II., 1167, and Torteval, still more ancient, of the æra of Henry I., 1130, which was erected by Philip de Carteret and dedicated to his Saint, Philip, after a vow during a storm in Rocquaine Bay. There is the menhir stone in a meadow by one of the lanes.
The highest peak of the islet is the perpendicular cliff eastward of Maye Point, rising to 300 feet – with offset rocklets and caverns or slits in perfection. After the steep descent to the north-east into the little cove of Petit-bôt, we mount abruptly to a very fine brow, Mount Hubert, the name associated with the chase, and as we are now in the district of Le Forêt, we may believe that we are on the site of sylvan sport in the olden time. The dingle over which we look to the elevated church of Le Forêt, on the opposite brow, reminds us of the ravines of Devon or Man, the road winding in zigzag down a very deep valley with a rippling streamlet at its side. We are now on the brow over Icart Bay, the wildness and breadth of its waters spread out far below us. The sienite rocks are finely chaotic, exactly grouped for the pencil, and among the best studies in the islets; and around us we may discover very luxuriant patches of lichen – among them the Roccella Tinctoria, or Orchel, to which we owe many a bright olive dye and the litmus paper so essential as a test. Another descent to eastward brings us to the most exquisite little cove, Saint’s Bay; the huts and nets and grouping of fishermen are on a ledge of the rock, adding life to the otherwise solitary scene. The martello tower that was to guard the descent of the gorge, like a Border peel in Scotland, is properly perched to carry off the cliffs. Crossing Bon Point, the most fantastic outlying rocks of Muel Huet at once arrest the eye; disintegration has left them at present almost as caricatures. Leaving St. Martin’s on our left, the high brow of Jerbourg rises eastward, on which there is a lofty column to the memory of General Doyle. It is the finest point for a panorama of the isles; Herm and Jedthou beneath us, Serque and Jersey extending their long grey ridges in the distance. The lines at Fort George commanding the road and the port are dismantled; from the eastern bastion we gain a very fine bold view of the harbour and Castle Cornet, with the eastern coast to the Castle of du Val, Alderney, lying on the horizon. And so we accomplish the coast route of Guernsey.
It is early evening in summer: wandering in the interior of this floral islet, we are directly surrounded by pretty quiet hamlets and homesteads: the abrupt lanes are lined and feathered by underwood of very luxuriant yet dwarfish growth. The little gardens are glowing with flowers, and they, as if to shame the forest by a contrast, attain a gigantic height, their colours being exquisitely deepened into perfect beauty. The tree verbena rises twenty feet; camellia, oleander, myrtle, aloe, cystus, blue hydrangea, fuchsia, geranium, magnolia, all blooming profusely in the open air; amaryllis, the Guernsey lily, being here unparalleled. The heliotrope overruns its bed in the wildest luxuriance – a carpet of the richest dyes more beautiful by far than the cloth of gold of Hindustan, and on which Flora might well hold her Court of Blossoms – and the canna indica is now a denizen in the islet. And here on the brow is the village of Catel, looking down and across the flats to Braye. The antique church of the twelfth century, frowning in dark stone, adds subject of high interest to the bright landscape around us. And look at that eccentric daub within it – three knights on horseback with falcons, and three skeletons lying on the ground. It is somewhat tempting to hatch a legend, but we refrain in pity, especially as the ovum is addle. There are, however, real records of the ceremonial magnificence with which these islet churches were consecrated, that are truly entitled to a remembrance. Bishops and abbots and feudal lords, with their trains of vassals and servitors, were wont in days of old to take, we hope, a holy pride in assembling to grace the consecration with their state. Still more fanciful is the romance of the Well of St. George, near Catel, which is fraught with a very potent charm. St. George beats St. Valentine hollow; for a maiden has merely to make a votive offering to this Saint at his well nine days in succession, and lo! if she looks then into the well, she not only sees her lover, but may claim him as her right. So he becomes a Benedict will he nill he.
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