The Nunnery
The Nunnery was a barracks on the island of Alderney where various battalions of the English fighting forces were housed, particularly during the late 1700s and early 1800s when a French invasion of Britain was threatened.
Only ruins remain in modern times.
The atmosphere in the early 1800s is captured in a poem, author unknown, that appears in the book 'Pieces of Land" by Kevin Crossley-Holland.
"Nine years on, nothing to do,
but throw the bloody dice and pick out bloody lice from your bedding.
Cholera’s the one soldiers fear - flew in with a magpie, decimated the
garrison only last year.
But Boney stays behind the veils of indigo, somewhere but somewhere
a long way from Contenin. This year, next year, sometime.......
Francis King, replacement, had a thing or two to say, six inch sores from
sitting on my backside! Jesus what a hole!
Not a bleeding girl on the whole island to take
me for a ride. Hide out for
queens and queasies, that's Alderney.
Call this place a barracks, Christ alive its a bleeding nunnery, stick here
any longer and Ill get into a habit, yes and sleep alone."
