Sark, Guernsey

The bel air inn (Pika)

Visitor centre (Pika)

  Originally built as a girl’s school and financed through a legacy left in Peter le Pelley’s Will in 1839. The boy’s school was located in, what is today, the Chief Pleas government building and court.   During the German Occupation, the school for girls was relocated to the Methodist Church and the building was used as a form of barracks for the soldiers. After the Occupation, the building was once again used as a school and remained as a school for Sark’s children until 2004.  

Stocks hotel (Pika)

Stocks hotel has brought a new level of luxury to the channel islands, providing the ultimate in relaxed charm and barefoot elegance.   We are dedicated to the finest traditions of rural island hospitality combined with the latest contemporary comforts. Following a sympathetic refurbishment Stocks is now open for most of the year allowing guests and visitors to the island to enjoy the quiet charm of Sark throughout the seasons and for whatever the reasons.  

Welcome to sark (Zona)

Sark is the crown jewel of the Channel Islands, nestled in between Guernsey and Jersey, 80 miles south of England. We welcome you to enjoy our car-free island, spectacular scenery, bays, coastal paths and cliff top views. Sark offers a truly unique holiday experience for those wanting to escape the bright lights and noise of the city.

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Mr hesters (Pika)

MR HESTERS will be happy to arrange your holiday luxuries, which can be made ready for your arrival. Please contact us for prices and to make arrangements: room@mrhesters.com

Horse and carriage (Pika)

Stocks village shop (Pika)

Harbour cafe (Pika)

Window in the rock (Pika)

  Rev William Thomas Collings inherited the fief from his mother, Marie Collings in 1853. She had bought the fief the previous year from Pierre le Pelley who was forced to sell to pay off the debts of his father. The debts were attributable to the folly of the silver mines on Little Sark. Marie was the daughter of the businessman who loaned the money to Pierre’s father to finance the mine.   Rev Collings took note of the tourists visiting the island to discover its beauty and the ruins of the old mines and wished to further encourage tourism to the island. As part of this plan, he reputedly created the ‘window’ in the cliff face in order to frame the view of Les Autelets (the altars of rock jutting out of the sea below), since made famous by various artists such as William Toplis and Ethel Cheeswright.  

Eperquerie - buddhis... ... (Pika)

The carved stone towards the tip of the headland was carved by a Tibetan monk and bestows a blessing for the island.  

Eperquerie (Pika)

The term ‘perque’ is derived from the old French word for wooden stakes. When the monks occupied the island between 565 AD and the mid 14th century, they secured their fish and eels to these perques to dry. The stakes were located at the Eperquerie Common.   L’Eperquerie Landing, prior to the blasting through the rock to form Creux harbour in 1588, would have been the main landing place for ships with an easy assent up to the plateau above. From the landing, you can see where the ancient cartway wore deep into the rock leading up to the common through the walls of the fortification which spanned across the spine of L’Eperquerie. This gap in the wall was once an archway with heavy wooden doors and nearby lies one of the 4 guardhouses, the foundations of the one above the Eperquerie Landing can still be seen today. 4 or 5 men would have kept watch at night, using coal to keep warm and whale oil for light.   The 18th century gun lying above the Eperquerie Landing was used to defend the island from the French during the Napoleonic war. Men were recruited at the age of 17 and received a year’s training. Men aged between 45 and 60 were reserves. All British military issued cannons are marked with two arrows, the numbers indicate the weight of the cannon, the initials of the monarch are entwined beneath the crown and there are sights either end of the cannon.   The upturned cannons were salvaged from The Valentine, a ship which was wrecked just off the coast of Brecqhou in 1781. They were reputedly used by the militia for target practice.   The original half round tower, or mantlet, was built around 1800 as a shelter for Sark’s militia during target shooting practice.   The carved stone towards the tip of the headland was carved by a Tibetan monk and bestows a blessing for the island.  

Monks well (Pika)

La seigneurie (Pika)

    The area was originally occupied by St Magloire and his 62 fellow monks in 565AD. They arrived from Breton and set up a monastery and school. They built carp ponds and a mill. The spring above Port du Moulin (port of the mill) fed the carp ponds with oxygenated water and powered the mill with the aid of a sluice gate. The monastery was destroyed in the 9th century but the carp ponds and water well remain to this day in the grounds of La Seigneurie. St Magloire died on Sark aged 82.   La Seigneurie house and gardens has been the home of the island’s rulers since 1730. Originally a Jersey style farmhouse, built in 1675 and made of granite. Occupied by Susanne le Pelley at the time she purchased the fief of Sark in 1730. Until then, the original home of the Seigneurs of Sark had been Le Manoir (near the Visitor Centre). The name was changed from La Perronerie to La Seigneurie and it has been the home to all of Sark’s Seigneurs since. A full account of the history of the Seigneurs who occupied La Seigneurie can be read in the chapel within the gardens of La Seigneurie  

Sark island hall (Pika)

Chief pleas & senesc... ... (Pika)

  Chief Pleas is the equivalent of Parliament. Originally made up of the Seigneur and the forty tenement owners (land owners), they sat for the first time in 1579. They administered justice as jurats (equivalent to Justices of the Peace) but in 1583 the Chief Pleas acknowledged Guernsey as its appeal court for matters of justice. The jurats stood down in 1675 to be replaced by the Seneschal (magistrate), Prevot (Sheriff) and Greffier (Clerk of the Court).   Until the 1920s, only the Tenants and the Seigneur had a seat in Chief Pleas. The other occupiers of the island who did not own land felt they were not represented and appealed to the Lieutenant-Governor in Guernsey. From that investigation in the 1920s, six and later twelve, People’s Deputies were elected. The chief pleas usually met only 3 times a year but elected 12 of their members to sit on a council (the Douzaine) to deal with the more mundane matters of running Sark, e.g. road repairs.   There were major changes in 2008 and under The Reform (Sark) Law 2008, which came into effect from January 2009, the Tenants and Deputies would no longer have seats in Chief Pleas.  They were replaced by 28 elected members known as Conseillers.  The Seigneur and Seneschal have seats.  The Seneschal does not have the right to speak in debate or vote.  The Seigneur has the right to speak but with no right to vote.  

St peters church (Pika)

  Built in 1820 under the commission of Seigneur Pierre le Pelley as an Anglican church. There are plaques on the wall to commemorate locals lost at sea and tapestries on the seats showing the feudal family coats of arms. The seat with crossed keys indicates the pew reserved for prisoners who would be walked up the road from the prison on Sundays.   In 1880, the then seigneur Rev William Thomas Collings, commissioned the building of the Chancel. His daughter’s brooch is set in stone to the right hand side of the altar.   Dame Sibyl Hathaway started the fund to erect the war memorial outside the church.    

Hogs back (Pika)

A French garrison was sent to Sark in 1549 to recapture the island for the French. They built 3 forts on the island and one once stood in this location. Many of the men escaped the island and those who remained were evicted by the Flemish adventurer Adrian Crole. After evicting the garrison, he sought a reward from the English queen, Mary Tudor (also known as Bloody Mary). She turned him away empty handed and so he returned to Sark to collect valuables which could be sold during his journey home. After this, the Governor of Jersey sent aparty to demolish the French forts, presumably to discourage the French from returning.   An old Georgian gun or cannon still lies in its original position, pointing out to sea to protect the island from French invasion. Sark had retained a militia under the terms of the Letters Patent in 1565, whereupon the first Seigneur (feudallord) gave assurances to occupy and defend the island in return for the granting of the fief (a perpetual lease of the island).This is also the location of the British Commando raid, Operation Basalt, during the Second World War. A memorial stone has been sensitively placed in this location and gives details of the raid and its consequences.

Buttercups (Pika)

Gouliot headland and... ... (Pika)

On the 9th April 2007, 4 hectares stretching across the headland down to the Gouliot caves was recognized as a Wetland of International Importance under the international Ramsar Convention. This recognizes and protects the thriving wealth of species of this special marine environment.   The headland supports a range of coastal ecosystems and is home to many rare and endangered species of plants, insects and lichens. In Spring, the headland is one of the best places to view the magnificent and colourful display of wildflowers.   The cave is rich in a variety of invertebrate life, being home to many endangered species such as sponges, hydroids and sea anemones: it is a mosaic of many colours.  

La coupée & grande g... ... (Pika)

Until 1900 there were no railings extending the whole length of La Coupée and on windy days the children of Little Sark would crawl over the crumbling path on their hands and knees in order to get to school in the middle of Sark. During the heat of July 1943, the German occupiers opened the beach below, Grande Greve, for bathing and the steep steps down from La Coupée were repaired and rebuilt. The bay was divided into 3 sections: one for the officers, one for soldiers of lower rank and one for the local Sarkese. Following the island’s liberation, the British Royal Engineers regiment employed the skills of the German prisoners of war to rebuild the roadway on La Coupée in concrete, erect concrete supports and handrails on both sides. There is a plaque commemorating this in the middle of La Coupée and an inscription in the cement at the end of the Coupée nearest Little Sark.

Silver mines (Pika)

In 1834-6 a deposit of silver and lead ore was discovered beside Port Gorey in Little Sark, a company was formed, miners were imported from Cornwall, and mining started. In 1938 a steam powered beam engine was installed in its newly built engine house on the right of the road down to Port Gorey, about 120 yards below the road to the miners’ Barracks. The beam engine pumped water from the sump (bottom) of the mine, with its flue running underground and up the hillside to the bigger of the two chimneys.   In 1841 the census showed 31 dwellings and 172 residents in Little Sark and some Sarkese on Big Sark also worked on the mine site.   By 1847 when the mine closed, five vertical shafts had been sunk up to 800 feet deep and eight horizontal levels up to 800 yards long had been blasted out with gunpowder. One level extended 300 feet out under the sea, where the miners could hear waves breaking and rocks rolling above their heads during a storm. The temperature increases by around 1 degree for every 196 feet descended and the temperature underground remains fairly static throughout the year.   Access to the depths of the mine was obtained by scores of ladders and light underground was provided by a strictly limited number of candles.   The mine’s offices, its smith and carpentry shop (with sawpit) stands in ruins on the left of the road down to Port Gorey, as also does the mine’s furnace not far above sea level. A quay was built and a derrick type crane was installed on the rocks beside Port Gorey and from there a railroad extended about 350 yards up the road to the engine house.   Most of the engine house was demolished in the 19th century, probably circa 1867 to build a new jetty at Creux harbour. The last of the remains of the engine house collapsed in 2014. The failure of the silver mine had a serious effect on the finances of the last Le Pelley Seigneurs who had invested in it and in 1852 the ancestor of the present Seigneur bought the fief of Sark from Peter Carey Le Pelley who had inherited it in 1849 as a teenager.  

Maseline harbour (Pika)

A product of Dame Sybil Hathaway’s desire to attract more tourists, using a more convenient deep water harbour where ferries could come in to drop off visitors to Sark even on a low tide. Construction began in September 1939, just as the Second World War began. At the time, there was much local opposition as they did not want to attract large numbers of tourists to the island. War intervened in the construction and they ran out of materials to continue building in May 1941. Construction did not get underway again until 1946.   Maseline harbour was formally opened by the Duke of Edinburgh and the thenPrincess Elizabeth in 1949.

Creux harbour (Pika)

The older, smaller tunnel was cut out of the rock in the year of the Armada, 1588.The entrance was barred by 2 gates and 2 guns mounted above for its defence.The harbour would have simply been the beach.The second, larger tunnel and pier were constructed in 1866. To prevent rockfall into the tunnel, the concrete casing was put in place in the 1920s.The harbour is affected by the tide and prior to Maseline being built, visitorsarriving in Sark on low tide would have to be transported from their ferry to theharbour in small rowing boats.

The avenue (Pika)

  Originally the driveway of Le Manoir and until the Occupation was lined with trees.  

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Harbour hill (Pika)

La collenette (Pika)

  In the Autumn of 1942 an order was issued for the immediate evacuation to the Continent from the Channel Islands of all UK born residents.  In Sark they were ordered to report to the German officers on the Collenette with the intention thereafter to travel initially to Guernsey then on to France and Germany to the work camps.  The locals met here to provide the deportees with warm clothes and food for the journey.  

Monks carp pond (Pika)