Les Augrès Manor is a 16th century manor house

Manor house

A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

 in the parish of Trinity

Trinity, Jersey

Trinity is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey in the Channel Islands. It is in the north east of the island.Trinity has the reputation of being the most rural of Jersey's parishes, being the third-largest parish by surface area with the third-smallest population. The parish covers 6,817 vergées...

 in Jersey

Jersey

Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...

, on the road La Profonde Rue.

The grounds of the manor has been home to the Jersey Zoo (now Durrell Wildlife) since 1958, and the manor house itself home to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust is a conservation organisation with a mission to save species from extinction.Gerald Durrell founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust as a charitable institution in 1963 with the Dodo as its symbol...

 (initially Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust) since 1963. It was also the personal residence of naturalist Gerald Durrell

Gerald Durrell

Gerald "Gerry" Malcolm Durrell, OBE was a naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, author and television presenter...

 during this time until his death in 1995, and remains so for his widow Lee Durrell. It has been prominently featured in several of Gerald Durrell's works, including Menagerie Manor, which takes its title from the house. The manor house was bought outright by the Trust from its previous owner in 1971.

The old manor is in the fief of Augrès, but stands on the fief of Diélament. The granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 walls and arch

Arch

An arch is a structure that spans a space and supports a load. Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.-Technical aspects:The...

es date back to the 16th century, but the house was rebuilt in 1771. It is a typical manor house of the period, with Jersey granite arches and huge grounds.

The manor house is depicted on the 2010 issue Jersey 5 pound note

Jersey pound

The pound is the currency of Jersey. Jersey is in currency union with the United Kingdom, and the Jersey pound is not a separate currency but is an issue of banknotes and coins by the States of Jersey denominated in pound sterling, in a similar way to the banknotes issued in Scotland and Northern...

.

Datestones in the manor

The manor contains numerous datestone

Datestone

A datestone is typically an embedded stone with the date of engraving and other information carved into it. They are not considered a very reliable source for dating a house, as instances of old houses being destroyed and rebuilt have been reported.Specific locations have often been chosen for...

s, the oldest identifiable ones of which state

• "EDM. FSDC 1682.", located above a fireplace, placed when a son Elie was born to the couple Elie Dumaresq and Francoise de Carteret (married 1680) occupying the manor in 1682.
• "EDM.EDC.1732." One of the two stones placed by the couple Elie Dumaresq fils
  Fils
  Fils or FILS can mean*Fils , a river in Germany*Fils , a subdivision of currency used in many Arab countries*fils, the French word for "son"*Firestone Indy Lights Series...
  
   Elie and Elizabeth de Carteret fille Jean, who married in 1703 or 1704.
• "EDM. EDC.1741." The second of the two stones placed by the couple.

Previous occupants

Both Elie Dumaresq and Elie Dumaresq fils Elie were part of the legal system of Jersey. Elie Dumaresq was a Jurat

Jurat

Jurat is the name given to the clause at the foot of an affidavit showing when, where, and before whom the actual oath was sworn or affirmation was made....

 of Jersey, starting office in 1692, while Elie Dumaresq fils Elie was an advocat starting office in 1703.