Historic Jersey buildings
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Property name
Clos du Menage [1]
Location
Le Vier Mont, St Ouen
Type of property
18th century house. 'Experts' disagree on whether it was built then in a former quarry or dates back to medieval times
Valuations
The property sold for £670,000 in 2008 and was subsequently divided into two separate units.
- No 1 sold for £575,000 in 2016 and £658,000 two years later.
- No 2 sold for £605,000 in 2016, which is likely to have been the year when the property was divided.
Historic Environment Record entry
Listed building
Current evidence suggests the house is circa late 18th century incorporating earlier architectural elements, with an early 19th century extension. This is based on an archaeological test pit evaluation undertaken by Absolute Archaeology in 2010, which concluded that the house is built within a disused aggregates quarry and cannot have been built earlier than the late 18th century.
The John McCormack publication, Channel Island Houses offers a different interpretation, based in part on his inspection of 2009. [2] McCormack identifies the main structure as originally a four-bay medieval open hall to the north and a three-bay store to the south, above which was a high-status chamber; the house then including two bays of oak joists resting on a central oak beam.
The mouldings on the joists are of a style indicating a date between 1580-1625 - interpreted as the likely ceiling across of a medieval open hall. A long range of 2-storey buildings.
The three-bay southern end of the range contains a first floor chamber, distinguished by three large windows of moulded grey Chausey granite (possibly re-used). The windows have holes for original interlocking iron grilles or ferramenta, and two surviving lintels engraved with designs in low relief - detailing that makes them very rare and very early, from a period before the more typical 15th century and 16th century chamfered windows seen in many other island houses became standard.
There is a pair of early style granite chimneystacks with unusual thatch drip stones on the south gable and central cross wall; the northern chimneystack being of 19th century brick pattern.
Old Jersey Houses
Despite its supposed antiquity, the house does not feature in either volume
