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John
Vibert must have wondered what he had let himself in for when he
arrived on Sark. Apart from stone from some old abandoned buildings
everything else had to be shipped across from Jersey, which would
have been quite some task in those days.
In common with the other 39 tenants, John's tenement had an allocation
of labourable land in the vicinity of where his house was to be
built, together with other fields and an stretch of coastline. The
latter was to ensure that all parts of the coastline of the island
were protected from invasion.
John would have been required to pay a flat annual rental of one
cabot of wheat per annum, which is not bad when you consider that
one vergee of good land could yield 40 cabots per year, and he would
have had about 30 vergees.
John's tenement became know as La Rade and he built his house along
what is now the main road of the island called La Rade De Moullin
( the road to the mill). The house would have been a simple single
storey cottage facing south and was situated on the north side of
his tenement. We know that by 1700 the house had been extended as
it is recorded as having a frontage of 68 feet 6 inches at that
time, which is much larger than the original would have been.
He must have been an intelligent man for in 1579 he had been appointed
Sergente Ordinaire of the Sark Court, but he died circa 1612. On
24/12/1612 his tenement was inherited by his sons Nicholas and Francois.
Nicholas who was the eldest took the house and one third of the
land ( and with it the liability of providing the man for the island's
defence), and his younger brother Francois the remaining 2/3rds
of the land.
Francois must have been quite successful because in 1597 he bought
one of the other tenements now known as La Duvallerie from Jean
De Carteret. In 1615 Francois's daughter Jeanne married Samuel Duval
and their son eventually inherited it and gave it it's name.
Francois who had 7 daughters and no sons died in 1633 and his only
surviving daughter, Marie inherited the 2/3 rds of the original
La Rade tenement. She sold it on 1/12/1647 to Jean Le Gros Junior
( Who was at the time Captain of the Sark Militia) who was probably
a relative. He in turn sold a portion of it known as La Touffe De
L'Epine to John Vibert son of Pierre ( a member of a junior branch
of the original John Vibert's family), who built a new house on
the land which became known as La Rue Cottage.
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