This proves the existence of a chapel in the churchyard, but whether it was the building known by the name of “Le Belfroi,” and which was demolished in 1787, cannot now be ascertained. “Belfroi” is the name given in the mediæval ages to a Town Hall. The edifice known by that name in St. Peter Port belonged to the Town, and was used latterly as a store-house for militia requisites. It is described as having been built of stone, vaulted, and divided into two apartments, an upper and a lower, the latterly partly underground. Probably the lower part of the building was used as a charnel house, in which the bones of the dead, after they had lain long enough in the ground to become quite dry, were piled up; for, among the duties to be performed by the officiating priest, we find that they were required to chant a “recorderis” over the bones of the dead. Such charnel houses are still very common in Brittany, and many country places throughout the continent.
Of the other chapels which existed in the Town parish the memory even has perished. The estate known as Ste. Catherine may possibly have derived its name from a chapel dedicated to that virgin martyr, but all that is known is that there was a fraternity or religious association under the patronage of this saint, which was endowed with wheat rents. Some of the rents seized by the Crown, and afterwards made over to Elizabeth College, were due to the “Frerie de Ste. Catherine,” and possibly this body possessed its own chapel. The site of the Chapel of St. Jacques is well known, and traces of the foundations were still to be seen till comparatively lately. It was situated in a field on the Mon Plaisir estate, on the right hand side of the lane which leads from the Rue Rozel to the back of the Rocquettes, at the head of a little valley, just where the roadway is at the lowest. The orchard to the east of this spot, on the opposite side of the lane, is still known by the name of Le Cimetière, and human bones are still occasionally met with in digging. It had some land attached to it by way of endowment, which was sold by the Royal Commissioners in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, as we learn from the Livre de Perchage, temp. Elizabeth, in which it is called “La Chapelle de _l’ydolle_, St. Jacques,” and that Thomas Effard was in possession of land that had belonged to it. From the same document we learn that there was also a chapel called “La Chapelle de Lorette,” which, there is reason to suppose, may have been in the vicinity of Candie.