E is for Écréhous – A smugglers nest
A contribution to the #AtoZchallenge 2024
Gédéon and his family see no option than to flee the country, on account of Louis XIV’s hostility toward Huguenots. They set out by night from Carteret for Jersey. But they are caught in a storm, drift off course, and their little boat flounders on Les Écréhous.
Present day
Les Écréhous are a tiny group of islets and rocks, with sandbanks at low tide, between Jersey and the Normandy peninsula. Today, seabirds, grey seals, and bottlenose dolphins breed on them, making them famous.
No fresh water exists in Les Écréhous, making permanent habitation difficult. Five of the islands are big enough for a house. However, high tides submerge all but the three largest. Le Maître Île in the south is the largest. The ruins of a small chapel and a mediaeval priory founded in 1203 still exist at its southern end. In 1309 a prior lived there with one monk and a servant. They lit a navigation light every night.
The island has a number of huts (as the habitational dwellings are called) dating from the prehistoric to the present. During high spring tides any inhabitants of the lower islands make for one of the others to keep themselves and their possessions dry and above water.
History
At low water these tiny islands appear to be joined by a winding causeway and until the mid 1700s Les Écréhous may have been a single island. The islands were a major centre of smuggling from the mid 1500s to the late 1800s. As Les Écréhous are officially part of Jersey, Channel Islanders always had free access. However, the islands had no customs post and, as they are barely a dozen miles from France, their situation was ideal for smuggling.
Lead and gunpowder destined for Saint-Malo for use in ammunition were the chief commodities smuggled through Les Écréhous during the 1690s. This trade reached such proportions that a request reached the Lieutenant-Governor, Edward Harris, to halt the ammunitions trade. This proved to be awkward because he was himself one of the smugglers!
Sources
- Jerripedia – the Island Wiki
- Wikishire
- Colin Pallot’s Flickr collection
In the book ‘Greet Suzon for me’, which is due to be published in 2024, a Huguenot family is shipwrecked on Les Écréhous as they attempt to escape from France to Jersey.
