L'ANCRESSE/PEMBROKE BAY

One of the biggest bays on Guernsey, L’Ancresse, also known as Pembroke Bay, is a magnet for watersports enthusiasts such as windsurfers, surfers and sea kayakers. It also boasts a golf course, for more land-loving sports enthusiasts. Pembroke Bay was the venue for an unusual record-breaking event in 2008, when nearly 2,000 islanders turned up with teddy bears of all shapes and sizes to form a human/teddy bear chain, breaking the previous record of 631.

During the turbulent, war-torn years of the 1700s a series of defensive structures such as martello towers were erected on Guernsey, and there are a number of 18th century towers dotted around this area, providing a defence against large troop landings. Another fortification in Pembroke Bay is Star Fort, a star-shaped earthwork defence. Just around the coast from this location is a much older site of interest, Les Fouaillages, the metalithic site of what is thought to have been a monumental tomb, in a place where human activity of one kind or another is believed to date back to 8,000 years ago.

Map of the area.

L'Ancresse Bay - geograph.ci - 25. Photo by Jonathan Wilkins, via Wikimedia Commons.