Crevichon is an islet off the west coast of

Herm Herm (Guernésiais: , ultimately from Old Norse 'arm', due to the shape of the island, or Old French 'hermit') is one of the -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, ...

, immediately to the north of

Jethou Jethou ( ) is a small island that is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. It is privately leased from the Crown, and not open to the public. Resembling the top of a wooded knoll, it is immediately southwest of Herm and co ...

, in the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...

archipelago in the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

. According to S. K. Kellett-Smith, it means "isle of crabs, crayfish or cranes". Like other names in the region, it is Norman in origin. A thousand years ago, the water level was ten feet lower, making these creatures far more abundant there.

Geography

The island measures about , which yields an area of less than three

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

s. The distance to Jethou is about .

History

A 16th-century drawing, now in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, shows Crevichon as apparently a wooded islet. Prof. John Le Patourel, in ''The Building of Castle Cornet'', mentions that in 1566 iron and hammers were taken to "Creavissham", and the island quarried for the castle. The quarry has been used intermittently since then, making the island less visible; to make up for that, a fifteen-foot marker was erected on its peak. Crevichon may have provided the

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

for the steps of

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. It is said that, in earlier times, pirates were hanged with chains both on Crevichon and on nearby

Compton Mackenzie Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie, (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972) was a Scottish writer of fiction, biography, histories and a memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish nationalist. He was one of t ...

, former owner of

, called Crevichon "Merg" in his book '' Fairy Gold'', whose setting is a fictionalised version of the islands.

Wrecks

In 1953, Victor Coysh says that he saw the remains of a German bomber, from the time of the occupation. The German plane that crashed on Crevichon on 19 November 1940, killing all its crew, was a He 111 that either a British

night fighter A night fighter (later known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor post-Second World War) is a largely historical term for a fighter aircraft, fighter or interceptor aircraft adapted or designed for effective use at night, during pe ...

shot down while the He 111 was flying from France to bomb the south coast of England, or that developed engine trouble on the way.Forty (2005), p.244. Other wrecks include the ''Courier'', a Guernsey steamer, that grounded in 1905 with 80 passengers.

References

*Forty, George (2005) ''Channel Islands at War: A German Perspective''. (Ian Allan). * ''Channel Islets'' – Victor Coysh Herm Uninhabited islands of the Bailiwick of Guernsey {{Guernsey-geo-stub