Lansdowne Crescent: Chapter 12
...Tom took us to La Longue Rocque, Le Route de Paysans, which is an impressive menhir, measuring 4 feet – the tallest on Guernsey. Folklore says that the fairies used to use the stone as a cricket bat but it is also said to increase fertility if touched. Mary laughed at the story, but she also did quite a lot of touching of it...
Jean Day continues her account of a group of Worcester neighbours in the first decade of the 20th Century.
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On Saturday, Tom took us to La Longue Rocque, Le Route de Paysans, which is an impressive menhir, measuring 4 feet – the tallest on Guernsey. Folklore says that the fairies used to use the stone as a cricket bat but it is also said to increase fertility if touched. Mary laughed at the story, but she also did quite a lot of touching of it.
He then took us to Les Creux-es-Fales – the Fairy Grotto. This is an ancient burial site set on a hillock opposite the island of Lihou on the west coast. You can walk to Lihou at low tide, and the causeway is such that we didn’t even get our shoes wet. We had a picnic there and on the far side there is a natural swimming pool, filled by the sea, but it doesn’t all empty away. Tom tried to interest us in a swim, but we refused. Anyway, the tomb in that area dates to around 3000 BC and was used for successive burial until the late Bronze age around 1000 BC. Two original cap stones of the bottle shaped tomb survive. Folklore states that the tomb was the entrance to fairyland and that every week the night fairies would emerge to play near the Le Trepied passage tomb.
On Sunday we went to Church with Tom and the resident students of his school. Then afterwards, he took us on a tour of the public bits of the College. Just inside the entry we went into the assembly hall, which is very impressive with large windows and a high ceiling. There is a pipe organ on one side and a stage at the front. Then he took us up the stairs to the tower room, which is used as a staff room. With windows on all sides, we had a wonderful view over the harbour. Tom is listed as Assistant Master, and also Captain Stinton, as he is in charge of the Junior Officer Training Corps.
The school was established in 1563 by Queen Elizabeth in order to promote Protestantism in Guernsey. The first headmaster, who was called Hadrian a Saravia, was one of the translators for the King James' version of the Bible. What we saw however, was not the original building, but one which was erected in 1826.
The students are all boys, and mostly fee paying, although the States of Guernsey award scholarships annually on the basis of the eleven plus results. Many of the residents are those whose parents work abroad.
The original object was to found, in the name of the Queen, a grammar school called ‘The School of Queen Elizabeth’. I think this part of the history is such fun. ‘The School was also assigned with corn rents to provide a supporting income. Eighty quarters of wheat were assigned to the Master and the School which were to be levied and held by the School Master in perpetuity – all of which were endowed by letters patent. It was stipulated at the time that the Master need not necessarily be a clergyman but should ‘be versed in Latin and in Greek, if it happen, and endued of good morals and with a grave aspect’. Further to this the main purpose of the school was to be the ‘teaching of grammar’ and it was at the Master’s discretion whether other instruction (subjects) was to be undertaken. The school was to be divided into 6 classes. It was also made clear that if the Master was to persevere in doing wrong he was to be removed from his position by the Governor of Guernsey.
An Education review Committee in 1823 investigated the history of the School up until that time and found that there had been many ‘instances of complaint against the Masters of the School for neglect of duty and for incompetency; some admonitions and some removals, but no expulsions of scholars’. They also found ‘that the number of scholars at the School of Elizabeth had probably never exceeded 29, and had often been reduced to one or two and at times there had been none at all!’ It was surmised that during the 260 years since its creation the Masters had not exacted any fees from the students, but for as long as anyone could remember 1 guinea was ‘given’ to the Masters as a New Year’s gift every year, with 1 shilling for the Servant and 2 shillings and sixpence annually for coal.
We left on Monday morning, and were sad that we would not be seeing Mary for some time, but she hopes to able to come back to visit in Worcester next summer.
