The Moie de Mouton and the unfortunate sheep of Sark, 1854
The Moie de Mouton cave, by a credulous R. Ellis, from the book Rambles among the Channel Islands, by a naturalist, 1854.
The Creux Mahie, October 1888
The largest cave in Guernsey, once a major tourist attraction. From the Monthly Illustrated Journal, (Guernsey Magazine), October 1888, p. 85; and the cave in 1951, when a party of three including a press photographer go in search of bats there. The illustration is a detail looking out of the Creux Mahie from a small 19th century visitor's guide to the cave.
Herm
From Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, 1831.
Charlie Chaplin
From the Guernsey Press of May 11th, 1939; 'Heard in the Bordage' by Stargazer.
The Season in Alderney
From The Ladies' Companion and Monthly Magazine, 1868. Old-fashioned and full of Latin tags but more fun that you might think. 'For be it remarked here, that the Alderney girls age remarkably fast, and very probably the charmer who is carrying on a conversation with you, and parrying all your flirting and causerie, with all the nerve and steadiness of five-and-twenty, is, after all, only adorned by the petitionary grace of sweet seventeen.'
Elie Brevint on witchcraft
Elie Brevint (1587-1674) was minister of Sark from 1612. His father Cosmé, also a minister, was a Huguenot refugee from Angoulême who had accompanied Helier De Carteret from Jersey in his colonisation of Sark. Transcriptions and microfilm of Elie's 14 Notebooks, which were found in a loft in Sark in the 19th century, are held in the Priaulx Library. Elie appears to be a sensible and rational man with a curious and detached mind, until he turns to these sorts of subject: the Pousseresse, perturbateurs, and salamanders. The illustration is of the Tormento do Tacto, or Torture, from Alexander Périer's O Desengano dos Pecadores of 1724, in the Library.
The History of the Jeux St George: post 1858
Another extract from the Monthly Illustrated Journal, July, 1888.
The French Prayer Book
A letter to the Editor of the Star newspaper from the Guernsey historian Edith Carey, 14 December 1926, concerning the history of the French Prayer Book, published for the islands, the first (unpopular) edition of which exists in only one copy, in the Lambeth Palace Library.
Militia Drills, early 18th-century
The Library has in its extensive local militia collection a photocopy of what was no doubt a most invaluable document in its time: a suggested drill, and loading instructions for the flintlock musket, written in the early 18th century for the officers of the Guernsey militia by Phillips Loggers.
Court terms
A layman's guide to the workings of the Royal Court, from Mauger's Guernsey Almanac, 1823, including the Courts of Chief Pleas, Mobiliary, and Plaids d'Heritage.
Alderney and Sark, 1838: under a bright sun, there is beauty everywhere
Chamber’s Journal, 1838. 'Both Alderney and Serk enjoy an excellent climate, and on that account a few residents, chiefly retired officers, have fixed their abode in these islands. But the luxuries of life are too scarce to render the small Channel isles ever the chosen abode of the wealthy.' 'It may seem strange to say of any portion of the British dominions, that reading is unknown: such, however, is the case in Alderney.'
Sarnia: Brief Memorials of many of her sons (civil, military, and naval)
A digitized copy of Ferdinand Brock Tupper's collection of biographies of eminent Guernseymen, arranged chronologically, beginning with John Andros in 1554, and ending with the death of Bernard Ouseley Brownrigg in 1864.