Jersey's weather observatory: Then & Now

Did you know that the Jersey Observatory that supplies St Helier's weather observations is actually a house?

Well, this property has been providing Jersey Met Dept and islanders with weather information for 125 years.

Maison St Louis, the property's name, and many of its instruments, were originally built by a Jesuit called Marc Dechevrens.

Mr Dechevrens, originated from Shanghai where he was a Director of a Jesuit Observatory he had built.

The property (almost identical to Maison St Louis) was described as a first class scientific institution in meteorology, geophysics and astronomy.

Mr Dechevrens got dysentery in 1887 in Shanghai, and came to Jersey recuperate.

He spent his years in Maison St Louis where he furthered his meteorological research and trained young Jesuits for the 17 or so Jesuit observatories around the world at the time .

He remained in Jersey, until he died in 1923.

Others meteorologists have lived in the building since then though.

Pere Burdo replaced and reset the instruments for eight years from 1925 to 1933.

Pere Charles Rey, a Jesuit, lived there from 1934 to 1979.

Sydney John Rogers followed him - living there from 1982 for 20 years, but since then there has been no resident meteorologist, and observation information has been sent automatically to Jersey Met Dept to give us our daily readings.

Today, a new resident has moved into Maison St Louis.

Jim Galvin is a meteorologist and has just arrived in Jersey and I found out a little more about the history of the building.