Notre Dame du Bon Secours

From Jerripedia

Notre Dame du Bon Secours was a boarding school for boys run in the first half of the 20th century in the building which now houses Highlands College

This fine aerial photograph shows Highlands College in the days when it was known as Notre Dame du Bon Secours School. The school, built in the grounds of the house in the left foreground known as Highlands - hence the name it has always gone by - was established as a French naval training establishment in 1894, and afterwards run as an ordinary school by the Jesuits. Before and after the Second World War it became a school for training French missionaries, but was taken over by the States in 1970 and developed to become a college of higher and further education. The house Highlands now forms part of the administrative offices of the Education Department

French naval school

In 1891 a French Naval School run by a religious order which had been prevented by new laws from teaching in Brest, in Brittany, settled in Jersey and three years later acquired a site called Highlands in St Saviour. After another three years they were replaced by the Jesuits, who ran the school until 1923, when it was taken over the the Brothers of Christian Education from Ploermel, who set up a missionary school.

During the German Occupation the buildings were used to house 180 occupying forces.

Great Hall

The original chapel is retained as the Great Hall in the centre of the building which is now owned by the States of Jersey and has reverted to its original name as offices for the island's Education Department and Highlands College, the island's higher education college. Anchors on the façade and a statue of the Madonna and Child show the college's past both as a naval college and Catholic institution. The former chapel built by the Jesuits features a magnificent hammer beam room and stained glass windows.