| Sark |
| Sark (French: Sercq; Sercquiais: Sèr) is a small island, located at about 49° 25' N x 2° 22' W. It is one of the Channel Islands, and is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey. It has a population of 610 as of 2002. The small island is a car-free zone, where the only vehicles are horse-drawn vehicles, bicycles, tractors, and battery-powered buggies or motorized bicycles for elderly or disabled people. Passengers and goods arriving by ferry from Guernsey are transported from the wharf by tractor-pulled vehicles. Sark's main industries are tourism and finance. Although many people think so, Sark does not have many tax immigrants. |
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| The flag of Sark |
The flag is white with the red Cross of St George which is a common theme through the island flags.
The red canton (the upper left corner) contains two yellow lions.
The canton is like the arms of Normandy, which the Channel Islands were part of until 1204.
The Sark flag started life as Dame Sibyl Hathaway's personal standard, she was the Seigneur of Sark during the Second World War Occupation.
When the Island Games started Sark realised it needed a flag.
The current Sark Seigneur Michael Beaumont suggested that the Seigneurs Standard could be used. It was adopted as the Sark Flag and has been used ever since.
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| Geography of Sark |
Sark consists of two main parts, Greater Sark, located at about 49° 25' N x 2° 22' W, and Little Sark to the south. They are connected by a narrow isthmus called La Coupée which is 90 metres (300 ft) long and has a drop of 100 metres (330 ft) on each side. Protective railings were erected in 1900; before then, children would crawl across on their hands and knees to avoid being blown over the edge. There is a narrow concrete road covering the entirety of the isthmus, built in 1945 by German prisoners of war under the direction of the Royal Engineers. Due to isolation, the inhabitants of Little Sark had their own distinct form of Sercquiais, the native Norman dialect of the island.
The highest point on Sark is 114 metres (374 ft) above sea-level. A windmill, dated 1571, is found there, the sails of which were removed during World War I. This high point is named Le Moulin, after the windmill. The location is also the highest point in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. Little Sark had a number of mines accessing a source of galena. At Port Gorey, the ruins of silver mines may be seen. Off the south end of Little Sark are the Venus Pool and the Adonis Pool, both natural swimming pools whose waters are refreshed at high tide.
The whole island is extensively penetrated at sea level by natural cave formations, some of which are only safely accessible at low tide.
Sark is made up mainly of metamorphic rock types called biotite, amphibolite and granite gneisses, intruded by igneous magma sheets called quartz diorite. Recent (1990-2000) geological studies and rock age dating by geologists from Oxford Brookes University shows that the gneisses mainly formed around 620-600 million years ago during the Late Precambrian-age Cadomian Orogeny. The quartz diorite sheets were intruded during this Cadomian deformation and metamorphic event. All the Sark rocks (and nearby Channel Islands of Guernsey & Alderney) formed during geological activity in continental crust above an ancient subduction zone.
This geological setting would have been analogous to the modern day subduction zone of the pacific ocean plate colliding and subducting beneath the North and South American continental plate. |
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Map of Sark - Click to enlarge |
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| Sark also claims jurisdiction over the island of Brecqhou, only a few hundred feet west of Greater Sark. It is a private island that is not open to visitors. Since 1993 Brecqhou has been owned by David Barclay, one of the Barclay brothers, co-owners of The Daily Telegraph. They contest Sark's control over the island. |
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| Politics on Sark |
Sark is often considered to be the last feudal state in Europe, as fief does still exist and the people holding land in fief have political privileges.
It has been voted to change this in March 2006, but the changes are not in force yet and the new system will also retain some aspects of Norman government.
The Seigneur of Sark is the head of the feudal government of the Isle of Sark.
Since 1974 John Michael Beaumont has been the twenty-second Seigneur of Sark.
Many of the laws, particularly those related to inheritance and the rule of the Seigneur, are little changed since they were enacted in 1565 under Queen Elizabeth I.
The Seigneur retains the sole right on the island to keep pigeons as well as an unspayed female dog.
He also owns all debris washed up between the high and low tide lines, although that is a right rarely enforced.
Sark's constitution has been democratised since the death of Sybil Hathaway, Dame of Sark, in 1974, and more power is now in the hands of the elected members of the legislature, the Chief Pleas.
In Sark, the word tenant is used, and often pronounced, as in French in the sense of feudal landholder rather than the common English meaning of lessee. |
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The landholdings of Sark are held by 40 tenants representing the parcels of the 40 families who colonised Sark. As explained on the Sark government website : "There is no true freehold, all land being held on perpetual lease (fief) from the Seigneur, and the 40 properties (Tenements) into which the Island is divided (as well as a few other holdings in perpetual fief) can only pass by strict rules of inheritance or by sale."
What will be changed is the composition of the Chief Pleas. Today Chief Pleas consists of the 40 tenants plus 12 Deputies of the People (elected by universal adult suffrage for a mandate of three years).
On the 8 March 2006 by a vote of 25-15 the Chief Pleas voted for a new legislature of 14 elected landowners and 14 elected residents. Not everyone favours the changes: Some people want to keep feudalism completely, others want a wholly-elected legislature. The result of a non-statutory opinion poll in which 165 people participated was 53% for a wholly-elected legislature and 47% for the compromise solution accepted by Chief Pleas.
Reasons for this change included the limited number of eligible tenants, concern that future office holders could be wealthy non-residents who held fiefs, and coordination with modern European standards of human rights and representation. Those changes are not in force yet; elections to the reformed body are expected to occur in December 2006. |
| The Seigneur and the Seneschal (who presides) are also members of Chief Pleas. The Prévôt, the Greffier, and the Treasurer also attend but are not members; the Treasurer may address Chief Pleas on matters of taxation and finance. |
| The executive officers on the island are: |
The Seneschall (responsible for judge and magistrate)
The Prevôt (Sheriff of the Court and of Chief Pleas)
The Greffier (Clerk)
Treasurer (Finances)
Constable (Police and administration)
Vingtenier (subordinated Constable)
Seneschall, Prevôt, Greffier and Treasurer are chosen by the Seigneur, Constable and Vingtenier are elected by Chief Pleas. |
| In 2003 Chief Pleas voted to vary the longstanding ban on divorce in the island by extending to the Royal Court of Guernsey power to grant divorces. |
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| History of Sark |
Although populated by monastic communities in the mediaeval period, Sark was uninhabited in the 16th century and used as a refuge and raiding base by Channel pirates.
Helier de Carteret, Seigneur of St. Ouen in Jersey, received a charter from the Queen to colonise Sark with 40 families from St. Ouen on condition that he maintain the island free of pirates.
An attempt by the newly-settled families to endow themselves with a constitution under a bailiff, as in Jersey, was put down by the authorities of Guernsey who resented any attempt to wrest Sark from their bailiwick.
During WWII, the island was occupied by the Germans from 1940–1945, as with the other Channel Islands and was site of Operation Basalt.
In 2008, Sark dismantled its 443-year old feudal system of government on the premise that this was necessary to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. On 16 January 2008 and 21 February 2008, the Chief Pleas approved a law which introduced a 30-member chamber, with 28 members elected in Island-wide elections, one hereditary member and one member appointed for life. On 9 April 2008, the Privy Council approved the Sark law reforms, and the first elections under the new law were held in December 2008 and the new chamber first convened in January 2009.
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| Religion |
| Sark has an Anglican church (St. Peter's, built 1820) and a Methodist church. John Wesley first proposed a mission to Sark in 1787. Jean de Quetteville of Jersey subsequently began preaching there, initially in a cottage at Le Clos à Geon and then at various houses around Sark. Preachers from Guernsey visited regularly, and in 1796, land was donated by Jean Vaudin, leader of the Methodist community in Sark, for the construction of a chapel, which Jean de Quetteville dedicated in 1797. In the mid-1800s there was a small Plymouth Brethren assembly. Its most notable member was the classicist William Kelly (1821-1906). Kelly was then the tutor to the Seigneur's children. |
| Supported by the evidence of the names of the tenements of La Moinerie and La Moinerie de Haut, it is believed that the Seigneurie was constructed on the site of the monastery of Saint Magloire. Magloire had been Samson of Dol's successor as bishop of Dol, but retired and founded a monastery in Sark where he died in the late 6th century. According to the vita of Magloire, the monastery housed 62 monks and a school for the instruction of the sons of noble families from the Cotentin. Magloire's relics were venerated at the monastery until the mid-9th century when Viking raids rendered Sark unsafe and the monks departed for Jersey, taking the relics with them. |
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| Sercquiais |
Sercquiais also known as Sarkese or Sark-French is the Norman dialect of the Channel Island of Sark. Sarkese is in fact a descendant of the 16th century Jèrriais used by the original colonists, 40 families from Saint Ouen, Jersey, who settled the then uninhabited island, although influenced in the interim by Dgèrnésiais (Guernsey dialect). It is still spoken by older inhabitants of the island. Although the lexis is heavily anglicised, the phonology retains features lost in Jèrriais since the 16th century. Most of the local placenames are in Sarkese.
It has suffered greatly in recent years due to a large influx of former visitors from England who have moved to the island, as well as official neglect. It is also closely related to the extinct Auregnais (Alderney) dialect, as well as Continental Norman. |
| Written Sercquiais |
Relatively little Sercquiais has been transcribed, and as there is no widely accepted form, it has received a certain amount of stigma as a result. Dame Sybil Hathaway, who was a speaker herself, claimed that it could "never be written down", and this myth has continued in the years since then.
The earliest published text in Sercquiais so far identified is the parable of the sower from the Gospel of Matthew. Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte, linguist, visited the Channel Islands in September 1862 in order to transcribe samples of the insular language varieties, which he subsequently published in 1863. |
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