St. Peter Port, L'Eree Bay and Castle Cornet
Friday 22nd July 2011
Spent the morning in St. Peter Port doing a bit of family tree research, and then in the afternoon took the bus to the other side of Guernsey to have a look at L'Eree Bay and Lihou Island. In the evening went for a wander round Castle Cornet where they were holding a kind of musical festival.
Channel Islands
John's Pictures

09:09:06
Breakfast on our balcony at the OGH.

09:12:32
I attempted to order a vegetarian cooked breakfast which turned out a bit odd looking really - you'd think they'd vary the portion sizes a bit if someone didn't actually order any of the meat constituents. I particularly enjoyed the fact the baked beans were in a little gravy boat.

09:12:42
The view from the blcony as we were having breakfast.

09:14:33
This is, I believe, how the upper classes eat beans on toast.

09:17:44
Chie eatineg her breakfast.

09:31:23
A couple more pictures of the view from our balcony - there's Castle Cornet...

09:31:33
....and there's Herm.

10:10:35
Downstairs in the hotel they had this rather superb 1820s map of London (I think I had seen a digital version of this on the web) - this was just before Pimlico was built.

10:11:04
...and I think Belgravia was still under construction at this time.

10:17:42
Candie Gardens, on the way to the Priaulx Library.

10:19:15
Here we are at the Priaulx Library, where I was going to do a bit of family tree research in the morning.

10:19:24
There's the building itself.

12:01:35
After leaving the library, I wanted to visit some of the streets where the records had said my Great Great Grandfather (Vernon John Charles Hawkins) had lived in Guernsey. Starting with Les Canichers - where he was boarding at the time of the 1891 census.

12:02:29
That's number 25 - the address he was living at in 1891 - although I have a feeling the street may have been renumbered at some point.

12:09:47
St. Clements Road, where the family were living when Vernon's third child (Muriel Brenda Eva Hawkins) was born on July 7th 1894.

12:09:54
That's was St. Clements Road looks like.

12:13:48
St. John church - I took a picture of this to remind myself that this would have been the family's nearest church in most of the places they lived in St. Peter Port. As a lot of the records were categorised by church this woul be useful to know.

12:13:55

12:16:06
This is Bouet, the street they were living on at the time Vernon's second child (Blanche Marion Jeannette Hawkins) was born on July 3rd 1893.

12:17:35

12:33:15
Also nearby the addresses we visited was the Randall's of Guernsey brewery, founded 1868. Not sure if it was always at this location, but as my Great Great Grandfather worked in the brewery trade I wonder if this may have explained why he lived in that area of St. Peter Port.

12:59:10
Town Church, where my Great Grandfather (Basil St. Helier Hawkins) and his sister Blanche were both baptised on the same day, March 30th 1894.

12:59:17

13:00:10
There's the actual font where presumably the baptisms took place. Rather nice to know my Great Grandfather (who I actually knew as he lived to the fine old age of 92) was here, over a century ago.

13:00:30

13:05:56
We couldn't resist a return visit to the Chip Inn to try their cheese and chips, which seems to be very popular in the Channel Islands.

13:09:38
There you go, cheese and chips on the seafront.

13:48:05
Back to our room again, and a few shots of the view.

13:48:22
There's a cruise liner in the harbour.

13:49:00
Castle Cornet.

16:29:43
Later in the afternoon we got the bus to the other side of the island - L'Eree Bay.

16:36:08
In particularly we wanted to see Lihou Island which is only accessible by a causeway at low tide...

16:37:29
...although it appeared that the low tide only really got low enough for the causeway to be completely above the water at certain times of year.

16:38:43
So we could only really go some of the way along the causeway.

16:41:29

16:41:57

16:44:09
From here on the causeway was definitely still submerged!

16:46:23

16:47:17

16:54:04
Wandering away from Lihou Island now.

16:54:11

17:18:54
We headed back around L'Eree bay, and found one of these roadside vegetable stalls that we'd seen all over Jersey and Guernsey. We bought a bag of tomatoes.

17:29:23
L'Eree bay, looking down to For Grey.

17:29:36
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Oh actualy there's one of each here. It seems the flight path into Guernsey airport was on this side of the island, so there was a fairly steady stream of planes overhead.

17:32:41
More of L'Eree bay and Fort Grey.

17:35:09

17:36:21

17:36:28

19:23:59
After a long wait then a long bus ride we finally got back to St. Peter Port. We decided to go and take a look at the free music event that was taking place in Castle Cornet this evening.

19:25:03
...on the way to that we passed the model boat lake.

19:25:44
Lots of pictures of Castle Cornet now follow.

19:25:51

19:27:01

19:27:50
...and various views out to sea from there. There's the cruise liner we saw earlier heading out to sea.

19:29:22
People brought picnics along which looked rather nice.

19:30:34
A little herb garden in the castle.

19:30:44
A cannon which seems to be aimed rather worryingly into town.

19:31:06

19:34:26

19:35:56
Inside the clock tower.

19:38:26
Lots of blue in this picture.

19:38:56

19:39:44
Self timer shot.

19:41:27

19:41:37

19:43:29
Lots more people having picnics.

19:44:09
That cruise liner again.

19:45:57
One of the performers.

20:58:24
For dinner we both fancied pasta so we went to this little Italian restaurant called Da Bruno, overlooking the harbour.

21:14:09