10 the town centre would be a vast improvement. Recent generations are not the only ones to have swept away historic ironwork. The extension (1903) of the Royal Court, Rue du Manoir, saw a massive granite balustrade replace the earlier wrought iron railings which were in scale with the neoclassical original facade of the courthouse completed in 1803. Efforts today to conserve this heritage can be placed under the following headings: Recording: Pierre Le Floch, a member of The National Trust of Guernsey, compiled a catalogue of Street Furniture and Road Surfaces, 400 pages, 1990-91. Curatorship: "Pressure to remove some ironwork relates mainly to railings and gates because of the desire for private car parking areas and the like" and this matter is of concern to Mrs Faith Rose, Principal Urban Planning Officer. Repair and replacement: On a quite small island, Mrs Rose and her staff are reliant on a single local manufacturer, John Kreckeler, to provide the necessary replacement material. A number of significant items have been placed by this supplier in key listed sites. Research: At present, the principal singlevolume work upon which most reliance is placed is (Sir) C E B Brett's 1975 publication for The National Trust of Guernsey; in its 96 pages the town's buildings are listed and described with notes and a bibliography on the architects. It is acknowledged that much further research needs to be done, and that simple questions such as from whom the ironwork was obtained (on the Islands, or from mainland suppliers and brought here as ships' ballast?) could perhaps be answered more fully. Writing now about St Helier, in the companion volume compiled for The National Trust for Jersey, C E B Brett states that "the town is not especially rich in ornament". Far larger than its Guernsey counterpart, the capital of Jersey has received more attention from developers and its central areas mainly lack the allure of Regency or other old groups of buildings in St Peter Port. Nevertheless, Simon A Smith, in his accompanying photo survey to this Context article, draws the experienced eye of a J erseyman to an abundance of interesting detail in historic ironwork. Both towns have excellent retail markets -each with remarkable architecture, an abundance of iron, and with an air of prosperity that remains undiminished even today. St Peter Port's stands near to the mediaeval centre of the town whilst St Helier's was carefully inserted in 1882 by the architect T W Saville Street, St Helier. Helliwell into a site amid houses and shops of Georgian and Victorian date. One of its entrances gives on to Halkett Place and the other to Beresford Street, subsidiary entrances open on to Market Street and Hilgrove Lane. It is Helliwell's work which I choose to write about. Its site dictates the main architectural feature, a central octagonal area, top-lit and compared to "the dome of a palm-house". Furthermore ... "the various stalls are tucked away below, like competing booking-offices below the roof of a railway terminus." All of this gives the Jersey market hall great architectural glamour, and it is not surprising that it continues to attract plenty of Islanders and tourists alike. Then comes the ironwork ... the external gates and railings are by George Le Feuvre, a local iron-founder, and depict the heads of sheep, deer, bulls, lovebirds etc with pendants of bunches of grapes and vine leaves in the gaps berween the fleurs-de-lys-topped uprights. Firstfloor window and balconyat 2 Eaton Place, Les Gravees,St Peter Port. The meeting point of the market's cruciform plan is ornamented with a fountain cum rockery where the iron castings were imported from J Dyson of Elland, Yorkshire. Here, the festive mood is maintained by the cupids who play among the droplets of water which sprinkle down from the fountain's centrepiece. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to thank the Island Development Committees of Guernsey and of Jersey and their officers, Mrs Hamilton and Mrs Faith Rose and Mr Graham Smith. The photographs of Jersey are kindly supplied by Simon A Smith. Graham Tite, whose articles have appeared in recent issues of Context, is a freelance historian on art, architecture and conservation. He also lectures to National Trust associationsetc on board ship and as part of study tours. He provides a ResearchService into all aspects of historic buildings. Tel: 01130 816363, Fax: 01730814917. CONTEXT 44
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