Testimonies kept in the collection, including a letter from Michel Hardelay dated October 4, 1995.
Diversous testimony
Letter from Michel Hardelay
Vierville, October 4, 1995
Madam,
Here is the information I have on the so-called "DES ROUTOIRS" source and on the cliff lots. They cannot concern events that occurred after 1982, the year after which I no longer had relations with the town hall.
Without going back to the Quintefeuille forest submerged by the sea on the second or third (?) Century I must remind you that after the conquest of England by Duke William in 1066 the exchanges between the Norman lords who had participated in the conquest and their children they had placed at the head of the conquered English counties, the transport of loot and the non-maintenance of land communication routes had required the construction of a port in Vierville.
This port still existed in the 17th century; it was defended by a large cannon, says a chronicle of the time,
And in 1920 I remember that a shallow pond with reeds still occupied the land that now belongs to M.M. ESNAULT and JEANNOT. This pond was filled during the construction of the PEYTEL tennis.
The piers, one in stone and the other on wooden ears, are still visible depending on the tides. I have a statement drawn up by Mr. CAMPSERVEUX father. The Americans had built their floating jetts on the site of the old morts of the old port.
The port existed in 1685 during the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes because MARIE DE VIERVILLE (who had married her father's squire, (Baron de Creully), the sieur of CRESPIGNY- her father had given her the fief of Vierville as a wedding gift -) used it to reach England; Indeed she was Huguenot like many Norman lords. His English "cousin" of 1066 gave him back his title of baronet-
I was able to consult, before their departure to the archives of Caen, the registers of the parish of Vierville. They begin towards the end of the 17th century and note the existence of sailors, a rope and a tailer.
Before 1685 Vierville had more than a thousand inhabitants and the church had two aisles to welcome the Catholic faithful.
The inhabitants lived in a closed circuit and everything had to be produced on site, except metals. As weaving fibers, flax was grown - the path that bypasses Mrs. JACQUET's property is called "Chemin de la LINIERE"
And we made THE LINEN ROUGE in the source of the "ROUTOIRS".
Two paths led to this source: one from the "Hamel au Prêtre" road, in front of the current property of Jean OLARD and through "Les 4 sillons" joined the way of customs, and the other from below passing on the beach or on the ridge of the pebbles. The site was swampy and cider press owners came there in August and September to cut four-foot reeds to place between the beds of cut apples.
I don't know when the port was destroyed by a storm, probably in the last years of the 18th century. The beach was abandoned and the grounds became grazing places, cows and sheep.
In 1899 there was a hard shepherd's hut in the PRIOR field.
Flax cultivation was abandoned, only the reed cutters and watercress pickers came to find their fortunes at the foot of the cliffs.
Around 1830, the municipality of Vierville had to consider having a cadastre imposed by law.
It divided the municipality into 4 sections: A in the Southeast, B in the Southwest, C in the Northwest and D in the Northeast. She owned communal land in each section,
South of the "VIGNETS" - I suppose from the name of "vignot", a kind of thorny sple -
And to the north the cliffs.
The Port-en-Bessin-Grandcamp roads and the descent to the Formigny sea-road delimited these four sections of very uneven surfaces.
The municipality decided to distribute the vineyards on the one hand, on the other hand the cliffs among the 85 families - we said fires at the time - of the municipality by drawing lot. There was to the west of the descent to the sea a mill in ruins and a bief that received the numbers Dl to D6, to the West,
On section C, the cliffs had an area of just over one hectare and were divided into three (?) Lots, but the big piece of 29 and a half hectares was divided into 82 lots of 36 ares 02. All lots bore the cadastral mention D7p, were classified as "moors". Their limits, all parallel and perpendicular to the shore, stopped at it represented, on the first plane of division by a straight line, and, to the south, at the Customs Road in a cliff crest.
There was a 5-meter path adjacent to the municipality of Saint-Laurent, substantially perpendicular to the shore, and which turned at a right angle to the East at about 80 meters, and still served as limits to the municipalities on 50 or 60 m. Lots 84 and 85 therefore did not have direct access to the sea and lot 83 was very crooked. ,
The path leading to the source of the Routoirs had been kept between two lots. When a more precise plan was redone, we realized that the shore was no longer straight and that the sea had gained ground on lots 25 to 35.
Of course the width of the lots was variable since the surface was not. Near the descent to the sea, lot No. 6 had a width of nearly 45 m., with us it is half: 22.25 m., further east it can be 13 or 14 m.
The first villas were built around 1870, but the sea route, subsidized by the department, (RD 30), was not born until 1900 or 1901.
The land was given by the owners and the retaining walls built under the direction of the voyeur agent but paid for by the owners of the lots. These were doing their business of the discharge into the sea of the waters of their springs. As there was a row of pebbles of several meters along the shore, nozzles under the road were enough.
During the German and American occupation of land by the sea, it was impossible to take care of the protection of the road against the tides.
The sea has resumed nearly five meters at the Vierville-St Laurent limit, which explains the slight curve that exists in front of the CHEVALIER property, because we could not continue the alignment of the old dike completed in front of the Hortensias in 1938.
The Americans buried their dead first on the site of the former property LE GAY, the only villa built halfway between the RICHARD and ROGER-SAINTENY properties. The rest of the land served as an area for unloading "ducks" and truck loads.
During the construction of the new dike, the road had been classified as "National Road", the owners had to insist that the old flows be preserved or restored: CHEVALIER (but its source no longer flows), GUGENHEIM-DEFORTESCU, ex-BRASSARD-CONIN-SHAEFFER, MATHY, .
For the flow of the source of the "ROUTOIRS" the DDE had made a road crossing with large nozzles. But the pebbles, then the sand obstructed the exit. They built an emissary and put a valve on the cliff side so that the sea, during high tides, does not flood the ground. 'The valve seized, the emissary was demolished by a scrap dealers' barge and rebuilt with two opposite exits.
It had been heard that the neighboring owners of the Routoirs source could evacuate the water through a ditch on the side of the road and connected to the emissary's flow.
The road has regained its status as a departmental road, so it is to the DDE of Isigny that you will have to contact in case the emissary no longer fulfills its water evacuation role. But I would advise you to go to the town hall because, since 1982, regulations have been modified.
You will excuse the typos of an old man who has corrected some but probably not all, and who is always at your service for any additional information
This letter allowed me to find some memories that I thought I had forgotten before sending you, dear Madam, mine.
Michel HARDELAY