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 Channel Islands and part of the Parish of St Peter Port in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. It is located in the English ...

, 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 south of Herm and covers a ...

, in the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

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), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre i ...

s. The distance to Jethou is about .

History

A 16th-century drawing, now in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, shows Crevichon as apparently a wooded islet. Prof. John Le Patourel, in ''The Building of

Castle Cornet Castle Cornet is a large island castle in Guernsey, and former tidal island, also known as Cornet Rock or Castle Rock. Its importance was as a defence not only of the island, but of the roadstead. In 1859 it became part of one of the breakwater ...

'', 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 ( phaneritic) 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 cools and solidifies un ...

for the steps of

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglicanism, Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. 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 th ...

, former owner of

, called Crevichon "Merg" in his book ''

Fairy Gold ''Fairy Gold'' is a 1926 novel by the British writer Compton Mackenzie.Linklater p.219 A Cornish knight living on an island, who has lost his son during the First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated ...

'', 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 (also known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor for a period of time after the Second World War) is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility. Night fighters began to be used i ...

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