Town’s Tower Hill steps – where three women were executed – have finally been weeded.
States Works has recently done the work, after the state of the area was highlighted on a ‘weed watch’ website.
The steps are a hot spot for tourists with a memorial plaque commemorating the three women who were burned to death there in July 1556.
Tour guides regularly stop there to retell their story, which includes gory details about one of the women giving birth during her execution and the baby being thrown back into the flames.
The steps had become overgrown over recent months, with plants growing up through the steps themselves and out of the walls.
It was one of the locations featured on a Weed Watch app, launched by Lars Janssen earlier this summer as a community led initiative to reduce the high quantity of overgrown weeds, following the ban on glyphosate.
The toxic herbicide was banned by the States in 2023 in a bid to preserve Guernsey’s environment, specifically our raw water supplies and biodiversity.
The topic had recently made headlines with some people calling for States Works to use it again to get on top of the number of weeds growing across the island.
Mr Janssen said his app promoted a message that the glyphosate ban doesn’t mean needy weeds can take over.
Tower Hill Steps had been listed as being in ‘severe’ need of attention on the weed watch app.
The app allows members of the public to ‘tick’ when they have taken care of weeding an area themselves, but on this occasion States Works removed them.
A spokesperson said this was done under the Service Level Agreement between States Works and Environment and Infrastructure.
While weedy areas might not be an area of high priority for the States, Tower Hill is a priority area for historians and visitors.
Tour groups regularly pass the area with guides retelling the story of Katherine Cawches and her daughters.
The executions of Katherine Cawches, Guillemine Gilbert and Perotine Massey are considered by many to be “among darkest days in Guernsey’s history”.
Their Protestant faith led to them being accused of heresy, and being condemned to being burnt at the stake.
Perotine was pregnant when the three were executed, and she gave birth while dying on the pyre.
The baby boy was thrown back into the flames on the orders of Bailiff Hellier Gosselin.
A plaque commemorating their memory is situated half way up the recently weeded Tower Hill Steps, marking the place where the three women and the baby died.
