Born of a storm
As part of his Stories of Our Streets series, Rob Batists looks back at Glategny, the first avenue to the north.
LONG, long before there was a roundabout, a White Hart pub or a Weighbridge, there was nothing much at the end of Le Pollet.
Perhaps it was just a pool, which the translation of Pollet is said to be in some quarters and, literally, it ran out into an open space and beach a couple of centuries back.
But along came a big, big storm, followed by an avenue and a harbour development.
Glategny was not only born, but established, never to turn back.
The beginnings of Glategny go back exactly 200 years and the great gales of 1821 and subsequent damaging storms in the years to follow, all of which wrought havoc on the houses backing onto the beach back then.
Although they were protected by what was known then as ‘quais’, they probably amounted to not much more than the sort of wooden groynes which dominated Vazon and Cobo a century-plus later.
So serious was the damage that the then Lt-Bailiff – Eleazor Le Marchant – took charge in person and very swiftly decided that a permanent sea defence was required for the stretch which ran from the foot of the Pollet all the way to Salerie Corner.
So it came about that in 1825-6 Glategny Esplanade was constructed, while leaving the area round the Salerie and Salter Street untouched.
The method of determining the width of the esplanade was ingenious – the length of one of the longest groynes was taken as standard and the sea wall was run parallel to the shore at this distance.
But back to the 1821 storm.
It was so exceptionally violent that a court consisting of the Lt-Bailiff and jurats James Carey and Jean Hubert gathered to view the damage caused to the houses bordering the sea.
‘Several quais and houses are already entirely demolished, others exposed to imminent danger and the access along this way completely blocked,’ stated the major newspaper at the time, La Gazette de Guernesey.
There was to be no hanging about, no dithering.
The Royal Court immediately authorised all constables, assistant constables and public officers on the island to order masons and others alike to work there immediately.
Failure to do so would leave them liable to be punished.
The situation was briefly so dire that the Lt-Bailiff remained at the esplanade all day, despite torrential rain, to supervise the initial work.
And why?
Because he lived there, that’s why.
The man was worried his living room was about to sink into the sea. Guernsey must bale him out.
Four years later, in 1825, house owners on this portion of the Town front petitioned the States and were determined enough to consult engineers and had the necessary work priced at £6,000.
It was a large sum but the owners agreed to pay a third of the cost and each would contribute in proportion to the length of the frontage of their land to the road.
They did so under one condition.
It would become unlawful to build anything beyond the three-and-a-half foot high top of the sea wall.
The same requete also proposed interested parties get together with Town and lower parishes to agree to remove the existing old stone buildings and pavements, with the aim of creating a road for all users.
Glategny, as we know it, was born.
Why Glategny?
Why not North Esplanade?
Well, any desire to counter-balance the Town seaboard by name with the South Esplanade was not a question when Glategny was created.
The South Esplanade was years away, being part of the major harbour development that started in the 1850s.
Hugh Lenfestey’s book Guernsey Names refers to Glategny as an old Guernsey French word for houses, land. It was also probably an extinct family surname.
So, at some person’s suggestion, Glategny it became.
By the mid-1870s Glategny had been penetrated by the opening to Guernsey’s spectacular new avenue – St Julian, which took its name from the rock massif that was to form the bedrock for much of the White Rock.
That meant that 1, Glategny made the corner of Le Truchot and still does, and after several more numbered properties there was a space to the old Royal Hotel.
We know that the Geo. Munro business was the maiden 1, Glategny address and among the buildings that made way for the avenue was Le Petit Ecole and Bayfield’s boarding house, which was bought by the States in 1852 and swiftly demolished to make way for the junction of Glategny, St Julian’s pier and the avenue to come.
Continued on pages 26 & 27
