Local produce · Grouville
Grouville Bay Oyster Beds
At low tide the Royal Bay of Grouville turns into a field of metal trestles: around 35 hectares of oyster beds below Mont Orgueil, where Pacific oysters grow in mesh bags and are moved along as they get bigger.
- Parish
- Grouville
- Type
- Local produce
- Rarity
- Uncommon
- Tide
- Not tidal
The story
At low tide the Royal Bay of Grouville turns into a field of metal trestles: around 35 hectares of oyster beds below Mont Orgueil, where Pacific oysters grow in mesh bags and are moved along as they get bigger. About 1,000 tonnes are harvested a year, most of it going to France and the UK - oysters that were spawned in Jersey water end up on plates in Paris. It is the second life of a very old trade. In 1606 the Governor tried to claim the Gorey oyster beds for the Crown and the Royal Court ruled that every Islander could work them. From 1810 a fishery supplied the oyster companies of Kent and Sussex, and by 1822 over 300 boats and nearly 2,000 seamen were dredging here, with more than 1,000 women working on shore. Between 1810 and 1871 Jersey sent an estimated two billion oysters to England. Overfishing, quarrels with France and a closed season finished it: 256 boats in 1856, 46 in 1863, six by 1871. The beds you see today are farmed, not dredged - and please stay off the trestles.
