I said ‘almost everything you need to know’ because, as Warwick Rodwell explains in Hamptonne and the Archaeology of Vernacular Houses in Jersey (see ‘Further reading’ on p.44), there is very little ancient structural timber surviving in Jersey’s houses, churches, and castles, and what does survive is not suitable for dendrochronological dating. There are further traps for the unwary: datable architectural features were frequently reused in later buildings, and the date stones that are found on so many buildings in Jersey do not always relate to the fabric in which they are embedded: some are salvaged from earlier buildings or other sites, and some record the date of significant nuptials rather than the building’s construction.
its purchase by the National Trust for Jersey in 1988.
Additionally, cultural traditions that have been superseded on the mainland have a much longer life in Jersey. Round arches decorated with rope mouldings that would be considered 12th-century in other parts of Europe continued to be used on the island to decorate 16th-century churches, such as St Brelade’s. King-post roofs of a type found in England and France in 1300 were used in 15th- and 16th-century buildings here.
