Normandy was first
invaded by seafaring scandinavians before the birth of Christ.
These fierce fighting peoples gave rise to the region's name
which derived from the term 'Norse men' or North
men.
For almost 500 years, until the early 700's, the
area was populated by Romans.
1066 saw the Norman invasion of England
under William. Following William's death in 1087, his heirs were divided and
much petty squabbling ensued. In 1135, Henri the First Beauclerc restored the
Ducal authority.
In 1204 Normandy
was reunited with the Crown of France.
Between 1417 and
1450 much of Normandy was occupied by the English. In 1431,
Joan of Arc was burnt in Rouen. In 1450 Normandy the English
were repelled following the French victory at Formingy and the
recapture of Cherbourg. In 1469, the Ducal circle was broken
when Charles of France, the last Duke of Normandy, was
stripped of his title. In 1437 La Ducrie was built for the
then Dauphin of France. We have the Dauphin's 'blazon' or
crest stone in the entrance hall. Being moated and with
a variety of defences, La Ducrie is actually a 'castle', the
word 'castle' means fortified house.
In 1514, the
Exchequer of Rouen was replaced by the Normandy Parliament. By
this time and following the Dauphin's disposal of the house in
the second half of the 15th century the house had become the
home of the most senior Tax collector for the St Lo region who
used to sleep in one of the rooms on the first floor where
there is still a pit in the floor of the passage to the tower
for the storage of taxes until moved under escort to the main
Normandy Treasury. To this day the room continues to be known
as La Salle de Monnaie.
It is believed that
the tax collector was also a Duke and thus a royal
personage. There are only three levels of royalty, a
King, a Prince and a Duke, Below Royalty we have the
Nobility and below the Nobility are the Gentry. Below
the Gentry inevitably we have the commoners. Thus the
house became the home of a long line of French Dukes. It
stayed in the aristocratic hands of one family until the mid
1950's. The house is still called La Ducrie (The Duke's House)
and it is now owned by Joe Helling and his wife
Vivienne.
In the grounds of
the house is an oak tree called The Black Duke. It is 20
feet circumference at its base and at around 130 feet tall it
is one of the mightiest oak trees in France. We cannot
establish who the Black Duke was or why he acquired this title
but it is the reason the suit of armour in the entrance hall
has black plumage as apparently, in heraldic terms, only
Royalty fought in black. We also have black swans, this
because Joan of Arc seemingly presented her enemies with a
black swan to signify their oncoming defeat in battle.
Again we cannot confirm this and although it is written in
several manuscripts, the presentation of a black swan seems
strange as it is a southern hemisphere (Australia and New
Zealand) bird and neither had been discovered at that
time! Perhaps black swans were globally distributed and
eventually restricted themselves to the southern
hemisphere. Who knows?
BJ or Joe, is a
true Highland Laird, born in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1948. A
chartered engineer by profession, his ancestors were Norman
invaders whose family name at that time was 'Hellouin'. They
came from the region of Bec Hellouin, the famous and beautiful
abbey south of Le Havre. Vivienne, Joe's wife was born in
Dublin, Ireland in 1950. The owner of a successful public
relations company, Vivienne has an office in one of the
outbuildings and still manages her UK based business from
France. Together they run a small but select B&B operation
at La Ducrie to supplement their income.
