LOCATION

St Sampson

The northern town and port of St Sampson is known locally as the Bridge. Guernsey by GWS Robinson (published by David & Charles, Newton Abbott, 1977) describes how it was given this name as follows:

The only other harbour is St Sampson’s. It occupies what was once the eastern end of the Braye du Valle, a narrow salt-water channel which runs from St Sampson’s church to the Grand’ Havre, and at one time divided from he mainland of Guernsey an island measuring about 2 miles by 1 1/2 miles known as the Clos du Valle. The Braye was reclaimed during the Napoleonic wars, and the Clos now forms simply the northernmost section of Guernsey.

The road at the back of the harbour is still called The Bridge. The land was drained at the start of the 1800s. Work to reclaim it began in 1839 and continued until the end of the century.

Although not as large as the harbour at St Peter Port, St Sampson can accommodate sizeable vessels and was once a centre of shipbuilding on the island — particularly the building of ships used in exporting stone from the island’s quarry.

At first glance, St Sampson appears fairly industrial, primarily on account of the power station situated there, but it’s not far from Vale Castle and has good views of Herm on clear days. St Sampson parish is home to a school, sports ground, BBC Guernsey and the island’s prison.

St Sampson is also the name of the parish in which the town of St Sampson resides. This parish is split into two with the larger part sitting on the east coast and a smaller, entirely detached offshoot on the west. They are separated by the Vale parish.

Read more about St Sampson

A body on a beach, an impossible alibi and an unstoppable race against time!

St Sampson appears in The Sarnian, the explosive adventure series in which the discovery of a dead body on one of Guernsey's most secluded beaches blows the lid on a world of intrigue and deceit.

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St Sampson in context

St Sampson in brief

The Bridge is the name by which most locals know the area of St Sampson, which sits to the north of St Peter Port. It’s easily identified on a map as the pinched neck of the island, and its second major port.

The area got its name because the parishes to its north were previously cut off from the rest of Guernsey, and so a bridge positioned there linked the two previously discrete islands.

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This web site, and its contents, are here to support The Sarnian, a series of books set on and around the Channel Islands, and Guernsey in particular. It started as a means of keeping track of each character so that their features, loves, desires, abilities, looks and so on didn't change from book to book and has grown to become a complete encyclopedia of the series. Unless otherwise stated, the images included on this site were taken by The Sarnian author, Nik Rawlinson, who is also the author of the content.