Archaeology and the Right Snuff

Archaeology these days has to fund its activities from diverse sources but one of the most unusual is that which this month is financing the excavation in Jersey of what may have been a fifteenth-century Breton farmhouse. The sale of part of a large collection of antique snuff bottles, left to the Sociéte Jersiaise to do with as it saw fit by the benefactor, Eric Young, raised about £600.000 at a Hong Kong sale last autumn and part of the money is being used to fund archaeological work at the National Trust for Jersey's Hamptonne property, in St Lawrence's parish on the central part of the island.

For a small place only nine miles by five, the Channel isle of Jersey has a considerable number of historic sites. They range from standing stones to eighteenth-century houses, and while loose planning laws may enable residents of St Helier to run down Regency grandeur to ghastly guest house, there is a strong movement within the bailiwick to conserve ancient properties.