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Les Blancs Bois |
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The large and imposing group of buildings known as Les Blancs Bois or White Woods, at the northern edge of the Castel parish belonged to the eminent family of Fouaschin, who gave the island a Bailiff in 1481 (Nicholas Fouaschin). On 17 May, 1549, according to research carried out by Dr. Darryl Ogier, Thomas Fouaschin sold Les Blancs Bois to Jean La Perre, and it remained in the hands of this family until 19 April, 1816, when it was sold to Abraham LainŽ. The house, barn, stables, cider press, etc., recorded then have been too drastically modernised in recent times to enable any estimate of their original character or evolution to be made. But the handsome double arch at the entrance of the estate has survived almost unscathed, except that the adjoining roadside has been raised by about a foot from the original level, as has also been the case beside similar arches at the Ivy Gates - the entrance to the wonderful house known as Les Granges de Beauvoir Manor.
Guernsey has few of these double entrance arches compared with Jersey. Examples have been recorded at the western end of Market Square; another alongside the south transept of the Town Church; on Glategny Esplanade; and opposite Boots, giving access to the old Le Marchant Manor, rebuilt in 1787 and now the Town Constables' Office. The last arch has been completely rebuilt either at the same time as the house or later. The churchyards of St. Pierre-du-Bois and St. Andtew's both once had such double arches of the fifteenth century, the lower parts of that at St. Pierre-du-Bois still being in situ. Part of another medieval example, once an entrance to the Franciscan Friary, survives at the lower entrance of Elizabeth College, and yet another, complete, is at the entrance to Le Groignet between the Talbot and Fauxquets Valleys, perhaps dating from around 1500. This time, instead of being buried, it is left stranded in mid-air because road Ievels have been lowered, and this entrance never had a carriage arch, only double gates and a pedestrian arch, as did the made-up entrance at Normanville on the Fosse AndrŽ. Other, much later double gateways are at the Town Hospital (now the Police Station), moved there c.1742 from L'Hyvreuse, near the Duke of Richmond Hotel; and at La Maison de Bas at Pleinheaume in the Vale, this one of a unique design and probably early eighteenth-century.
Such entrances were intended to be status symbols, announcing to all passers-by the driveway or 'cache' ('chasse' in Jersey) to a house of quality. The French call these driveways 'allŽes d'honneur', but the local name is derived from an ox-drove! The fashion for them lasted from at least the fourteenth century until around 1700, after which there are few convincing new examples in any island, although keystones were occasionally changed to record new ownerships with later dates. The gateway at Les BIancs Bois is undated, so it can only be compared to other similar double arches in Jersey that are. Fortunately, the chamfering around both openings is associated with a roll moulding unlike virtually any house doorway, and this is a design that belongs to the second half of the seventeenth century, like the egg-shaped arch, cut down from a carriage arch and dated 1653, moved to the top of the roadside wall around Rohais Manor. The Blancs Bois entrance may have been erected by Pierre La Perre, who died around 1656, or else perhaps by his successor. Unlike the Ivy Gates arches, which are in local grey granite, the gateways at the Town Hospital and Les Blancs Bois are in Jersey granite, which can easily be distinguished from Cobo stone, although of a similar colour, by very regular black flecking. There are several examples of Jersey stone being imported here for designs that needed to be carefully shaped, for instance an arched doorway at Le Fainel in St. Martin's, or dressed stone of the 1580s at Sausmarez Manor. The double arches seem to have been imported complete, together, in the case of that at the Town Hospital, with handsome matching ashlar blocks for the surrounding walling. Here, at Les Blancs Bois, the arches are set in less prestigious random rubble walling of local stone.
Economising is also demonstrated by the reuse of a medieval fireplace lintel on its side, behind the pedestrian arch. This lintel dates from the second half of the fifteenth century and its reuse here probably records major renovation of the main house just after 1650, just as at Les Tilleuls nearby, where Pierre Le Roy the diarist removed the arched doorway from his house at about that timeand put it on the roadside, placing a medieval bedroom fireplace lintel over his new front door instead.
The buttressing behind and between the archways is virtually identical to that at the Ivy Gates. Its irregularity may indicate repairs or rebuilding at some time, but hollowing might also have been necessary to accomodate the wooden ledging of the gates, so that they could open fully. Marks for the dropping ofl atches are very clear, and the stone lugs or 'vaertevelles', pierced to hold the extended sides of the heavy main gates as a form of hinge, are still in position, high up at each side. The word 'vaertevelle' in Guernsey patois is itself of interest, deriving directly, it seems, from the Latin 'vertere' = 'to turn', and is unknown in Jersey or French. The lighter pedestrian gate was hinged in a similar way, but its stile was extended upwards through one end of an oak lintel, set between the stonework of the arch itself and the reused fireplace lintel.
Some carriage arches, especially those close to the houses they served, as in the case of a second carriage arch at Les Granges de Beauvoir Manor, or Les Sts. Germains in Jersey, had porters' lodges next to them. It is unkown if this was the case here, or why the high stone wall should extend further on one side than the other. Probably the extent of the high walling merely marked the total width of driveway and verges, such as those of The Avenue in Sark that led to Le Manoir and now hold narrow shops. Such driveways or 'caches' were normally tree-lined, as at Le Groignet and the Ivy Gates, emphasizing fhe seclusion and privacy that a rich owner could afford.
It is good to know that another of these important double arches, reflecting such an important element in our social history, is now in the safe hands of the National Trust for Guernsey, and it is to be hoped that any explanatory plaque that they put up will be more accurately dated than that at the Ivy Gates, claiming an eighteenth century date for a seventeenth-century arch, presumably on the basis of some allusion to the date that the L'Hyvreuse example was moved to the Town Hospital. Only the latter archway preserves its original proportions, and it might be a nice idea to take the opportunity of this transfer of ownership to sponsor a little excavation around that at Les Blancs Bois to its originat level, perhaps revealing a mounting block that seems to be poking above the surface to the left of the arch. Another stone, blocking the main arch, has a chamfer and was probably once the base of another arch or a fireplace. Its provenance is unknown.