Balconyat Delmair, Vauvent, St PeterPort. foreign vessels as prizes. By 1697 some 30 Guernsey privateers are said to have been in operation, but it was the later period 1778 to 1815 that saw the largest fortunes made. Wars against America, against France and against Napoleon's Empire all gave plenty of opportunities. Thus, one Guernsey merchant, John Le Mesurier, brought in £212,000 in prizes with eight ships in one year alone. New wealth was rapidly converted into fine buildings, and French emigres arriving at the same time added further artistic novelties of their own. The most famous was the writer Victor Hugo, another enthusiast for the beauties of CONTEXT 44 Pissoir,La Bordage,St PeterPort. Guernsey and its capital. It is for these reasons that St Peter Port presents us with an image of goodquality Late Georgian, Regency and Victorian building on sites either within the mediaeval town centre or in suburbs developed immediately outside. As elsewhere in mainland Britain, these periods are generally good ones for the quality of architectural ironwork. Five years of occupation by the German forces (1940-45) seems not to have witnessed much removal of this ironwork to go as wartime scrap metal - so there are fewer 'gaps' than one might find in, say, Cheltenham, Leamington, Tunbridge Wells etc. Geography and politics seem to have continued to favour St Peter Port, where remarkably few concessions have been made to post-war economic pressures for redevelopment. The intrusion of brash shopfronts at the hands of multiple stores and other commercial interests is thrown into ever higher relief here, therefore, than in similar mainland British towns. Here, as so often elsewhere, good surviving examples of old cast iron lampposts at present carry much newer electric light fittings. The reinstatement of at least two or three of these with properly made lanterns in key locations in 9
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