Jersey to Corden: Give back our stones
JAMES CORDEN has found himself at the centre of an Elgin Marblesstyle debate about a prehistoric stone circle in his back garden.
Politicians in Jersey are calling for the chatshow host to remove the ancient monument from the grounds of his £8.5m Berkshire home and send it back to the Channel island where it originally stood.
The Neolithic dolmen that sits in Corden’s 43-acre estate was removed from St Helier in 1788. Unlike the sculptures taken from the Parthenon in Athens, the stones were given to field marshal Henry Seymour Conway, who shipped them to England. As governor of Jersey, he was given the Mont de la Ville stones for erecting a series of defensive towers to prevent a French invasion.
But now Jersey’s government is to ask Corden and his wife Julia Carey for the return of the stones, after a lobbying campaign from islanders.
Kirsten Morel, the island’s culture minister, told the Jersey Evening Post: ‘This is not a situation like the Elgin Marbles because the dolmen was a gift from Jersey, so there is no argument as a matter of principle. It would be a lovely idea but there’s a long way to go.’
Sources close to 42-year-old Corden say he is yet to be officially approached by the Jersey government. As the stones are Grade II-listed, it is believed he would have no say over what happens to them.
The monument, thought to be a burial chamber or religious shrine, consists of a covered passage leading to a circular unroofed chamber with a number of cists, or small coffin-like boxes around the edge.