Accueil – GB

11th century is deeply marked by the appearance of illumination in Norman manuscripts. This is mainly due to the monastic revival and the need for religious communities to build a library. England is so famous for its art schools and its signature style. Several workshops are experiencing significant radiation as those of Canterbury and Winchester.

This coin show that Rollo’s dynasty had become established. It bears the likeness of Rollo’s immediate successor, William Longsword, his son from a first marriage (927-942)

These silver pennies, minted in England after his victorious battle, show the face of William the Conqueror. The first, minted in London, dates from 1066-1068 The others, from 1072-1074 and 1083-1086, were minted in Exeter, Bristol and Wilton.

Bayeux Tapestry, or Queen Matilda's Tapestry, or even older Tale of the Conquest is a 70 meter-long embroidery, composed of 9 panels of linen cloth, showing 58 scenes, each being captioned in Latin.​

Confirmation charter of William the Conqueror (patronus of the Normans and King of the English) to Fécamp Abbey of Steyning (Estaninges), West Sussex, which King Edward (the Confessor) made to the abbey. He also grants the manor of Bury to the abbey in compensation for the claim which they made against him for the property which they had in Hastings (Hastinges) in king Edward’s time.

Despite the difficult start where the young Duke has to face opposition from a part of the Norman aristocracy, peace is essential in the duchy and the ducal power is reinforced. William grows his ancestors' past alliances and develops new ones, imposing himself as a territorial prince with international reputation.

After the Conquest, Sussex was divided into administrative areas known as " rapes ". There were three in East Sussex - Hastings, Pevensey and Lewes. Count of Eu received the rape of Hastings, Count of Mortain that of Pevensey, while Guillaume de Varenne became Lord of Lewes.​

In late 12th century and early 13th century, in the French regions dominated by the Kings of England from the dynasty of Plantagenêt, english coins circulated frequently along with local coins.​

Photography of Joan of Arc Tower

Henry abbot of Tréport (in Normandy) reminds that tenements at Bolinton and Pebsham (in Bexhill), Playden and Stand was sold to the abbot and convent of Robertsbridge, for £66 13s 4d.

Normandy had laid down in writing a set of legal rules, called the Très ancien coutumier de Normandie in the late part of the 12th century. The second part of these rules would be put in writing after Normandy became part of France in the first half of the 13th century and was to remain in force until the Revolution.

A deed conveying property in Merstret in Rye from John and Alice Torel to Peter and Denise Hegsthone. There are two seals attached, both in green wax. The smaller is of John Torel and shows a ship with one mast.

The text was written between 1350 and 1370 by an anonymous Norman author, probably from Rouen. This story is based on the Roman de Rou of Wace (1160-1174), as well as on the Chronicle of Normandy of the 13th century. The Chronicle focuses on Norman ducal and royal English characters. It begins in 911 with Rollo, the Viking chief, whom the king of France Charles III the Simple donated the County Rouen in the Treaty of Saint -Clair sur Epte. Depending on the version, the story ends either in 1204, with the annexation of Normandy to the crown of France, or at the latest in 1217 with the accession to the English crown of Henry III , son of John Lackland.

English alabaster carving depicting the murder of Saint Thomas Becket, second half of the 15th century. Semi-relief. Musée des Antiquités, inv. 626.

Large Protestant communities became established in Upper Normandy, centred mainly on Rouen and Dieppe, following the Protestant Reformation. The Huguenots took control of Rouen in April 1562 shortly after the massacre of Vassy, which marked the start of the civil war, and indulged in large-scale destruction, including mutilation of the statues in the cathedral.

Order from the Lords of the Council, 28 October 1571, ordered a survey to be made of strangers (foreigners) in the town and for undesirables to be expelled

Tragic episode of the religious wars, the massacre of Protestants triggered in Paris on August 24, 1572, on St. Bartholomew’s day, continued for several days in the capital, and then extended to more than a dozen province cities during the following weeks.

"Le Pourtraict de la ville de Dieppe", by François de Belleforest (1530-1583), 1575. Wood engraving.​

A large French colony fled to Rye, a coastal town in East Sussex and the main landing point at that time for ships leaving Dieppe, to escape persecution.​

Certificate by the Mayor and Jurats of Rye, 27 March 1579, as to the good character of a number of French settlers in the town, including Anthony Cocke.​

The letter lists men suspected of piracy at Hastings, Rye, Lydd and Romney, a number of whom are French. They include Frances Maquery from Rye, a French merchant from Dieppe, who also appears elsewhere in the exhibition.

Counterpart bargain and sale to Frenchman Anthony Cocke and Moses his son of vacant ground, 43 × 14 ft., outside the Strandgate of Rye under the town wall, between Thomas Radforde's tenement and the new conduit for a rent of 4d a year. There are two seals, on tags, (1) a cock upon a letter N, with legend LE COQ; and (2) an anchor.

Fireback showing Richard Lennard, the founder at Brede Furnace, with the tools and products of his trade. His initials appear in a cartouche in the bottom right hand corner. A furnace is shown at bottom, and a wheelbarrow is tipping materials into the top of the furnace.

This map clearly shows the complex system of artificial ponds created to service the Iridge furnace.

The end of the Hundred Years War placed Normandy away from foreign wars for several centuries. This does not preclude the province to participate in transactions, including shipping. Captain Charles Daniel, a native from Dieppe, who served many commandments in the Royal Navy, is a fine example of a naval officer.

John, afterwards 1st Baron Ashburnham, aged 17 on a 'Grand Tour' through France and Switzerland.

Collier (1685-1760) was Solicitor for the Crown assisting in trials of smugglers until 1733 when he was appointed Surveyor-General of the Riding Officers of Kent.

The Channel is one of the busiest seas in the world from the point of view of ship numbers, and covers an area of 75,000 km2.

Dated 1757, this document appoints Robert Farwell as captain of the Dolphin, an unarmed trading ship with a capacity of 90 tons and bound for Newfoundland, Portugal or Spain. The appointment was made in the name of the Lord High Admiral “of Great Britain and Ireland etc. and of all His Majesty’s plantations”.

This document is a sailor’s apprenticeship contract (1760). It is in the format of a mediaeval chirograph: these documents were drawn up in duplicate, one over the other, and cut through along a zig-zag line or indent so that the two parts could be matched together (this is why these contracts are also called indentures).

In this report, John Holker junior describes the goods smuggled and lists the French and foreign ports where they are landed, and accuses some Dieppe fishermen of being involved.​

Born in Stretford in England and a supporter of the Stuart claimant to the throne, John Holker had to leave his native land for political reasons. When he arrived in the capital of Normandy he joined forces with an industrialist of Darnétal to set up a manufactory.​

In this memorandum the Chamber of Commerce records its views on the navigation and trade treaty of 1786, having sent two representatives to England. It notes that, contrary to the situation in France, English corporations of merchants and manufacturers had been consulted and had managed to have some clauses that might be detrimental to their business deleted.

King's letter authorizing Captain Smith, English ship commander, to order under the French flag a vessel plying the slave trade, without receiving act of reception, recorded on March 17, 1787.

Advertisement for the opening of a store in Rouen, rue Grand Pont, by two Englishmen, July 7 1787.

Letter to the members of the Chamber of Commerce of Le Havre and a comparative report of the English and French trade after the Treaty of Commerce 1786, 1788​

Commercial shipping registers show the extent of sea trade on ships leaving Upper Normandy.​Some ships were shipwrecked before they reached their destination, as was the case of the Amiral which was lost off the English coast near Hastings on 16 January 1792.

View 1 : Plan of the Parish of Brighthemstone, 1792 130 x 82 (ESRO: AMS 4106) View 2 : Map of the town of Brighton and its environs, 1850 by Ligott Smith for the regent King George IV 144 x 113 (ESRO : QDP 133)

Upon Edward the Confessor's death in 1066, Harold is crowned King of England, and takes the throne which amounted to William the Conqueror.​ When Harold refuses to give the kingdom back to him, William decides to raise an army and get across the Channel.

Lithograph dated 19th century. Born in 1610 in Dieppe from a Huguenot family, Abraham Duquesne takes his first command in the Navy at 18 years.

It was in 1797 that the Englishman George Wood set up his business in Forges-les-Eaux. ​ He concentrated on the production of “fine earthenware”, made according to a technique developed in England in the 18th century, designed to look like porcelain.

Valentin Rawle was the first person to set up water-driven spinning Jennies in the Rouen area. They were visited by Napoleon himself. Rawle had opened his first cotton mill, holding 6,000 spindles on two floors, in 1798.​

This report aims at encouraging traders from Le Havre to meet and assess their lost incomes from English piracy in the colonies. This document highlights one of the origins of the Franco-British conflict in18th and 19th centuries. Indeed, trade with the colonies is an economic issue.

Letter from the Deputy Prefect to the Prefect dated June 19, 1811 ; title: " enemy movement on the coast "​

A Revenue cutter is a small lighty armed boat, used to enforce customs regulations and catch smugglers.

Frances Sayer was visiting at a time when Brighton was growing as a bathing resort frequented by the Prince Regent, whose summer palace, the Pavilion, was still under construction.

Brighton is a town and one of the most famous seaside resorts in England. It was brought into fashion, notably by Albert Abdullah David Sassoon, the “Indian Rothschild” in the 1870s. Among its famous buildings, the extravagant Royal Pavilion raised as a residence for the Prince Regent, later King George IV.

Plan of a cheap and simple rolling bathing machine consisting of a light framework covered with canvas “as used on the coast of France” from the archives of the Brighton Improvement Commissioners, c 1820s.​

Printed notice offering reward for information about retailing contraband spirits, which would have included French brandy.

First Earl of Normandy, Rollo has generated much controversy. From Denmark or Norway, his story is known to us through Dudo of Saint -Quentin, Norman chronicler of 11th century.​

Sea-bathing became fashionable in Normandy in the 19th century, following the trend set in England by Brighton.

The Brighton Chain Pier was opened on 25 November 1823. The pier was primarily intended as a landing stage for packet boats to Dieppe, until they transferred to the more sheltered Newhaven. It was different from typical piers because, rather than being built on stilts, the deck of the pier was suspended from chains attached to pillars

Camille Koechlin, a member of a textile-manufacturing family from Alsace, used this journal to record his observations on a trip to England during which he visited the premises of Thomson, Chippindall & Co. near Manchester.

Shortly after the Royal Council for Public Education had given its approval to the teaching of English, the Collège royal de Rouen, the forerunner to the Lycée Corneille, wrote to the rector complaining of difficulty in finding a qualified teacher.

He leaves his bathing machines in trust to keep them in repair and to pay for the board, lodging and education of Edward Hall, the son of Ann Marchant, who is living at the same Brighton address as Kittle.

"Histoire de la conquête de l'Angleterre par les Normands : de ses causes et de ses suites jusqu'à nos jours, en Angleterre, en Ecosse, en Irlande et sur le continent" by Augustin Thierry. Fifth edition.‎ Paris, Just Tessier, 1838.

This perspective view of Dieppe, designed around 1840, highlights two ambitious infrastructure projects that never emerged: on the foreground, a large basin meant for receiving tall ships, extends to Neuville; to reach it, the ships used a channel “going to Paris”.

This 1844 calendar depicting a railway commemorates the start of train travel in the Lower Seine.​ The line, almost 130 kilometres long, follows the Seine valley. Work started in May 1840 and was in English hands.

The Compagnie de Rouen had to be able to produce carriages and locomotives in order to be able to run the line. The backers of the proposed railway line between Paris and Rouen again turned to England, which already supplied many of the locomotives used in France.

View of the Brighton chain pier. Nothing is known of the artist or the provenance of the sketch book.

Books containing architectural plates became increasingly popular in the second half of the 19th century.

Dieppe followed the English fashion for horse-racing, opening a racecourse as early as 1852 at which steeplechases were held. Followers of horse-racing were known as “sportsmen”, while the word “sport” was used in France only to describe horse-racing, as in the definition given in the 1883 edition of the Littré dictionary.

In the Middle Ages, these crosses were placed on the dead, both in France and England, along with a funeral pot.​ They have the shape of the Maltese cross and remember quite well the consecration crosses and crosses of cemeteries in 12th century.

A view of Eastbourne showing bathing machines on the beach.

List of participants from Rouen suggested by the admission jury

After several studies about the project of drinking water distribution in Rouen, the town assigns in this treaty the concession of water supply to M. Easton, Rivolta and Green in 1864. The object of the concession covers the distribution and sale of water for public and private needs.

Objects on this board were all presented to the departmental Commission of Antiquities on 23 May 1871. Preserved in the Museum of Antiquities, they were discovered in several places in Seine -Maritime and Eure between 1840 and 1871 ( Aubermesnil-les-Erables, Caudebec, Pîtres ) .

Report of the Chamber of Commerce, in English. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the practice of free trade between the two sides of the Channel really develops.

Many British citizens started to explore their Anglo-Norman roots from the second half of the 18th century onwards. Normandy was a popular destination for artists: painters like Turner, photographers like Tenison, but also engravers who reproduced their creations.

The first bathing establishment was founded in 1822 by the Earl of Brancas , sub-prefect of the town. This property, surrounded by a garden with its elegant colonnade, is considered the first casino in Dieppe. Marie-Caroline, Duchess of Berry, daughter of King Charles X , attracts people of the court and many artists, such as Rossini, in Dieppe.

he plate shows a two-cylinder steam engine built by E. W. Windsor. The construction of these machines made the name of the company, and of Rouen engineering.

Clubs became increasingly popular in Normandy, especially on the coast, in response to the English influence. The Cercle de la Concorde in Fécamp described its objective as offering residents somewhere “to talk about business and enjoy each other’s company”.

The Le Havre Football club was set up in 1872 by English Protestant expatriates working as traders or shop assistants in Le Havre. In 1891 the Le Havre Athletic Club adopted the colours of the English universities where the players had studied: the famous light blue of Cambridge and dark blue of Oxford.

This book is not the ship’s log proper but a record of certain categories of incident (eg deaths, disturbances on board) which were statutorily required to be reported to the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen. It includes a list of crew members with a report on their character and ability in seamanship.

Fécamp had an important role as early as the reign of William Longsword (927-942), the son of Rollo, thanks to the existence of a ducal residence near the former abbey which had been abandoned at the end of the ninth century before being restored as a collegiate church by Richard I in 990 and then being given abbey status in 1001 by Richard II.

Shortly before 1900, new printing processes gave rise to large advertising poster format. This support, among others, allows railway companies to promote tourist sites served by rail.

Even in clothes made from a particular type of high-quality fabric made in the Normandy town of Elbeuf, “the art of dressing well” was regarded as synonymous with the art of wearing English-style clothes, whether for sports (golf, tennis and horse-racing), in town or on formal occasions.

The Brighton, the fourth vessel to bear this name was one of the first turbine-driven liners on the Dieppe-Newhaven route. Built at the Dumbarton shipyard in Scotland, it had two propellers and ran at 6,000 horsepower.

Five long tunnels had to be dug and six viaducts constructed over the Seine in the building of the Paris to Rouen railway.​

The « Newhaven » is a French turbine-and-propeller-driven liner. Built at the Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée in Le Havre, taken intoservice in 1911 and modified to run on oil in 1932, it was 92 metres long with a top speed of 24 knots.

The earliest tourism posters were produced for the Compagnie des Chemins de fer del’Ouest in 1886, with towns and tourist offices following this example later on.​

French male fashion was strongly influenced by England, especially from the nineteenth century onwards.​

The Butler and Holliday families were well-known English industrialists: the Butlers produced textiles in Bingley while the Hollidays made chemicals in Huddersfield.​

The Franco-British Exhibition of 1908 : side-view of the pavilion's entrance. Glass negatives by Louis Chesneau, August 1908.

This middle-class home shows how influential the regionalist trend was both in towns and at the seaside.

The Collège de Normandie opened its doors in 1902.​ It was a private school for Catholic and Protestant pupils from the ages of 7 to 9 right through to the school-leaving examination. It was modelled on Harrow school in England. Modern languages were a prominent feature of the syllabus, and all pupils had to spend three months at a school in England.

Romanticised drawing of a smuggler, with the outline of the shore with Hastings Castle, and a run in progress from a lugger, by E. Leslie Badham (1873-1945), pen and ink.

Installed at Le Houlme since 1883 on the site of an old mill, Henry and Alfred Butler associated with leaving Charles and Thomas Holliday extend the site with the construction of new workshops, a working class city and two employers' homes

Brighton - East Sussex Record Office

The telegraph, along with carrier pigeons and radio, was a fast and effective means of communication between the Allies and the front line during the war. Messages were always sent in code to prevent the enemy intercepting the information. This message, encrypted using a highly sophisticated cipher, relates to the secret visit made by King George V to British troops in Rouen.

Posters published in large numbers by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, probably in 1915, were aimed at the young Englishmen who might be considering joining up for active servuice at the front.

My dug-out: an entry in the autograph book of a hospital nurse serving convalescent soldiers at Hove : sketch and poem

First World War Field Service Pocket Book of Albert Prior [born c1900], Royal Sussex Regiment 1917

He describes how My brother arrived home from the front covered in mud and blood and lice. His clothes were so filthy that mother could do nothing with them and he is now wearing my cast-off khaki!...The poor boy was so tired out that he reeled like a drunken man…War seems to have made him ill and gloomy. He just mopes

Advertising poster issued by Chemins de fer de l'Etat et Southern Railway to promote the ferry service between Newhaven and Dieppe on Le Rouen. Printed around 1920.

In the Collège de Normandie, modelled on Harrow school in England, physical education and games were compulsory. Pupils played football, real tennis and lacrosse, and did gymnastics and fencing.

Photographs of the re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings at the Battle Abbey Pageant in July 1932. (ESRO: PCA 236/3, 5)

On November 11, 1939, King George VI responds to a telegram sent by Albert Lebrun in these terms : " We both have reason to be reassured that the joint efforts of the peoples of Britain and France will be successful and Europe will be safe from the brutal violence and that peace will be established on sound foundations of freedom and justice."

Clerk to Newhaven Town Council, published jointly by Newhaven Town Council and East Sussex County Council to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the event.​

Freemasons being held responsible for the defeat, the Vichy government quickly takes action against them.

Poster advertising Hastings to English and French visitors showing ferry routes between the south coast and France. Artist unknown.

Cartography of Rouen through ages​ Maps drawn after ancient documents by Edgard Naillon - Published by G. Lanfry, 1955

First day cover issued by the Post Office on 14 October 1966 to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings.

Ancient lead ingot found in Lillebonne in 1840, at the bottom of the Roman theatre's outer wall. Weight : 43,5 kg