Historic Jersey buildings
If you own this property, have ancestors who lived here, or can provide any further information and photographs, please contact us through editorial@jerripedia.org |
Property name
Le Petit Menage
Location
Rue de La Porte, St Ouen
Type of property
One of the island's finest medieval houses
Valuations
No recent transactions
Families associated with the property
No information has been discovered about owners or occupants of the property
Datestones
There are no datestones evident
Historic Environment Record entry
Listed building
This building must be acknowledged as one one the best examples of a medieval house in the island and the only one with a king-post roof surviving. It has one of the finest open hall fireplaces and a matching chamber fireplace on the east gable. It has one of the interrupted chamfer stops on a ground floor beam.
Two storey, four-bay main house with small west extension. Various modern east extensions. Slate roof with pair of modern rusticated chimneys. Front elevation: Plemont stone build with a mix of long/short 18th century dressed stone to openings and some 16th and 17th century enlarged openings.
The entrance arch is a fine example of the early type, hewn from Chausey (?) stone and with wide chamfer, meagre shoulder stones and a cordon circa 1450.
Rear elevation: tourelle and outshut. Painted rough render finish. Slate roof. Small west extension: one storey. Slate roof, random stone construction with a medieval window of Chausey (?) stone, and complete with ferramenta holes circa 1450.
Shown on the Richmond Map of 1795.
The interior on the ground floor is now open plan. One of the beams still showing the fillet groove for panelling, this oak beam is heavily chamfered and has an interrupted chamfer stop. The room is dominated by the late medieval fireplace, its hood ascending into the unheated chamber above (this confirms the original layout was of an open hall construction). The fireplace measures 9 ft across and 5 ft 4 in from floor to underside of corbels. It has chamfered uprights, ogee decorated corbels, joggled lintel and the opening for a pastry/bread oven is evident in the rear of the hearth.
There are the remains of a fireplace opposite in the east gable. A pair of stone doorways in the north wall, one dressed and with a rebate leads into the tourelle, the other with rough hewn stone, and now blocked up, once accessed the outshut. The first floor rooms are divided by fine muntin and board panelling of various widths and with scratch moulding circa 1640. Some of the doors have fielded panels. On the east gable is a fireplace of a match with the munition hall fireplace west gable, it appears to have a fleur-de-lis cut into the corbel.
Old Jersey Houses
Given the age and importance of this property, it is one of the strangest omissions from either volume of the book
Notes and references
