La Fosse

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Historic Jersey buildings


La Fosse, Trinity


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Property name

La Fosse

Other names

La Fosse House

Location

Rue de La Fosse

Type of property

16th century Jersey farmhouse with many original features

Valuations

No recent transactions

Families associated with the property

  • Gallie
  • Larbalestier
  • Amy: Old Jersey Houses shows the Amy family as owners in the 19th century. It is difficult to be certain because properties were not individually named until the second half of the century, but the 1871 census shows farmer Elie Amy (1834- ), his wife Elizabeth, nee Dorey, their children Elias and Elize, and Elizabeth's widowed mother Elizabeth (1815- ) at what we believe would become La Fosse. They were no longer there in 1881
  • De La Haye: Census returns from 1881 to 1901 show that La Fosse had been taken over by farmer Josue de La Haye (1853- ) [1]living there with his wife Mary Ann, nee Nicolle (1851- ) . Ten years later Josue had married again, because his wife was listed as Ann Mary (1866- ) [2]. The couple had two young sons John, aged 3, William (1) and a three-month old daughter Gladys. By the 1901 census the couple had further children Ernest, Ray, Elie, Marguerite, Mabel, Hedley and Emile. Between 1903 and 1911 they had six further children, Agnes, Doris, Lucille Mary and Sybil, Edward George and Adelina Maud
  • Binet: The 1911 census shows La Fosse occupied by farmer George Binet (1888- ), his wife Lilian Le Cornu (1883- ), their two-year-old daughter Lilian May, and Lilian's sister Elsie Le Cornu (1895- ) [3]

Datestones

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  • 16 PLB AG 65 [4] - Carved keystone for Philippe Larbalestier and Andree Gallie. Her father was Clement Gallie, Constable of Trinity from 1652-60. It was through her marriage that the property passed into the Larbalestier family
  • MLB MCB 1686 - Keystone for Michel Larbalestier and Marie Cabot, who married in Trinity on 9 Dcember 1671. [5]
  • 1734 - date with no initials on outbuilding


Historic Environment Record entry

Listed building

A fine example of a 16th century Jersey farmhouse retaining original features and integrity, with a well preserved group of associated farm buildings. Shown on the Richmond Map of 1795.

Group of buildings comprising four-bay two-storey main house with a wing and new extension on the east side; on the west side a two-storey wing to the south and single-storey farmhouse wing to the north; detached stable block on north side.

Base of square tourelle visible against south wing. Small and uneven windows, tourelle of very simple construction with narrow steep steps.

La Fosse

Old Jersey Houses

Joan Stevens noted in Volume One that La Fosse was the only house in Jersey with six granite fireplaces surviving in the 1980s. Unlike virtually every other Jersey house surviving from the 17th century and earlier, the front door faces north rather than south.

The rather unusual layout suggests that the first Gallie house was the wing which is now the dining room. This was built into the slope of the hill on its east and south side. [6] When Philippe Larbalestier wanted to enlarge the house which his wife had inherited, he was limited by the slope of the land, and added a wing running east-west, with its entry on the north, and its enclosed staircase on the south.
The entrance to the north-east is an example of a pre-1700 entrance gate without an arch. The treatment of the stones make it contemporary with other features on the property.
Inside there are more niches in the walls than in any other house recorded. The fireplace on the ground floor west is most ornate and has a lintel bearing a shield with the initials MLB.

Notes and references

  1. Josue clearly owned La Fosse, because the records of both his marriages show his profession as 'proprietor', not farmer as would have been the case if he had been a tenant
  2. Anne Marie Francoise Jouny. They married in 1887
  3. The couple were George Francis Gaillard Binet and Lilian Alice Le Cornu, who married in St Helier in 1908
  4. The stone is shown in the HER entry as PLB AC 68, but other references give it as 16 PLB AG 65
  5. This stone has been removed from the property and is now on display at Jersey Museum
  6. The earth bank has now been cut back, freeing the gable end of the house
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