8T. PETER-iM)irr rx inciOXE times. 345 



B-R-I-A-R-D interlaced, Briard having been apparently the 

 owner's name. One or two oak panels containing inscriptions 

 similar to those on the front of the house, and having the date 

 1621, ^Yere removed from the interior when making the recent 

 alterations. A stone over the lower of the two doors of this 

 house, on the Berthelot-street side, bears the date 1616. Again, 

 when picking down the plaster from the front of another old 

 house in High-street some years ago, a beam was uncovered 

 which bears in raised letters the sentence : — " La Paix de Dieu 

 soit ceans, fait le 18 Octobre 1578 de par Andre Monamy." The 

 face of the beam which bears the inscription is at present placed 

 on the staircase of the Guille-AUes Library. 



One hundred and twenty years ago the houses in High- 

 street were, as they had long been, chiefly occupied by people 

 of the best Guernsey families. Many gentlemen already 

 possessed, and others built as their means improved (for they 

 were nearly all engaged in business in those days) other houses 

 at short distances out of the town, in which they lived during 

 the summer months. When the number of shops increased, 

 and the tradesmen began to jostle the gentlefolk in High-street, 

 the latter one by one deserted their town houses and settled 

 permanently in their former summer residences. But while 

 the grandees lived in High-street, the Grand Carrefour was the 

 favourite meeting place of the gossips. A wooden bench placed 

 along the front of the house next north of the manor gateway 

 was known as " The Seat of the Idlers," and here the 

 gentlemen would sit and chat, while the ladies knitted ; Mrs. 

 Le Marchant, the Bailiff's wife, being constantly seen taking 

 her place among the latter. The house which has now given 

 place to the Capital and Counties Bank, and which was last 

 occupied by Mr. Barringham, was then the residence of the 

 Rev. Joshua Le Marchant, Rector of the town, and to the east 

 of this were the houses of Mr. John Bonamy, and of Mr. Jurat 

 Elisha Tupper, whose son, Mr. John Elisha Tupper, finally 

 left the Carrefour to go and live permanently at the Cotils, 

 in 1829. 



One hundred and twenty years ago, too, there was a beach 

 at the back of High-street, for the quays were not yet built, 

 and the sea at high tides washed up into the steps and lanes 

 leading from the beach to the street, as it did not long ago into 

 old Cow-lane. At that time also the vegetable market was held 

 in the lower part of High-street on Saturday mornings, and the 

 fish market in the afternoon. The meat market was held in 

 Cow-lane, and in a little street near it called irrelevantly Bull- 

 lane, but properly La Rue Tanquoil. The butchers used to 

 remain all night to watch their meat, and a tale is told that in 

 1770, one poor fellow lost his life through being snowed up in 

 Cow-lane, which was entirelv blocked with snow for some davs. 



