![]() ![]() ![]() Had Porter had them, they would probably have been sold to the British Museum or dispersed among his friends.Īt the death of Mr Fauvel, the collection was acquired by Miss Fauvel of Gorey, and she guarded them jealously against all-comers during her long lifetime. Had Lukis been in charge of the work they would all have been spirited away to Guernsey, and lost to this island for ever. ![]() His other finds, however, were treasured in his own home with the greatest care. What he did with the skeletons he found is unknown. His excavations were lacking in method, and he appears to have made no notes or plans. The adverse criticisms directed by various antiquarians against Mr Fauvel are not wholly deserved. Of the Rev G F Porter, Vicar of Yeddingham and Chaplain of the Gorey Naval School, who dug up the passage-way in 1868, he speaks with even greater severity, alleging that he deliberately altered the dry-walling at the exit of the passage, and faultily reconstructed one of the side kists. He excavated the areas enclosed by the outer and inner chambers with their side kists, in a manner which excited the wrath of Mr Lukis of Guernsey, who in vain offered him expert assistance.Ĭaptain Oliver, in his "Megalithic Structures of the Channel Islands", 1870, calls the Fauvels "ruthless searchers for treasure trove" and accuses them of throwing down a small capstone and of displacing some of the other blocks. Known as the pouquelaye, it retained this appearance until 1839 when Jean Fauvel, the tenant of the Crown, commenced his treasure hunt. "This stands just at the top of a round hillock made of hands and is supported by flue stones, which by length of time are suncke soe deepe int o the ground that a man must creepe to goe vnder it ye couering being exceeding large and waighty."īeneath the table-stone was thus a cavity or grot. Poingdestre, writing at the end of the 17th century, said: Natural agencies in the course of time, combined with the activities of persons in search of building material, reduced the height and left bare the great capstone of the inner chamber and the upper parts of its half circle of supports. ![]() In height it probably measured 15 or 20 feet. The dolmen was originally covered with a mound of rubble and earth about 110 feet in diameter. The moment to remedy the omission has thus arrived. The placing on loan in our Museum of the entire Fauvel collection has aroused a renewed interest in the monument, which, until the discovery of the Dolmen of La Hougue Bie, held pride of place among the megalithic burial sites of the Island. Though the dolmen has been in the possession of the Société Jersiaise since 1891, when it was presented to us by the Crown, no detailed description, either of it, or of the objects which had been found in it, has yet been published in the Bulletin. As many of the visitors are of untidy habits, the Society would be well advised to devise some means for the better preservation of the site. During the summer months it is a nightly rendezvous for noisy bands of visitors from the hotels and boarding-houses of the east coast, who cause some annoyance to the residents of the neighbourhood. The number of persons who enter this property increases yearly. An oak notice board was erected at the same time near the steps, and on it was carved "Dolmen de Faldouet. A flight of five rustic steps was built in April 1932 at the road entrance to the lane, the stones being a gift to the Society from E Hooper Nicolle of Temple View. The plot of ground on which it stands, together with the lane which leads to it from the public road, are delimited by small square boundary stones, and enclosed by a lofty hedge of thorn. The position of this monument is shown on the Two-inch Ordnance Survey Map of 1913-14 about eight hundred yards north-west from Gorey Castle, at an elevation of 230 feet above sea level. And unfortunately that's all we can tell you about this old photograph. These supporting stones may form the four walls of a chamber, which may or may not be covered by a mound of earth.This unusual image, taken some time towards the end of the 19th century, shows a group of clergymen visiting the dolmen at Faldouet in the north-east of Jersey. “A dolmen, generally speaking, consists of an arrangement of stones, few or many in number, supporting one or more stones in such a way as to inclose a cavity beneath. ![]()
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