Pomme d'Or Hotel

The original site of the Pomme d'Or had been occupied since 1802, initially stables were built on it. In 1837, the owners demolished the stables and built a hotel in their place. It was named the Pomme D'Or after a local cider produced nearby.[1] In 1852, the French author Victor Hugo stayed at the hotel during his exile from France.[2] Following the end of the First World War, the hotel had become dilapidated until 1932 when the Seymour family bought it and renovated it.[1]

Reichskriegsflagge over the hotel in 1940

When the Germans invaded in 1940, the Pomme d'Or was requisitioned by the Nazis as the Kriegsmarine Naval Headquarters.[3] The Reichskriegsflagge was flown from the hotel's flagpole.[3] During the Liberation of the Channel Islands, soldiers of the British Army climbed to the balcony and removed the Nazi flag and replaced it with the Union Jack.[4][5] Since then, the act of raising the Union Jack on the hotel balcony has been ceremonially repeated yearly as the focal point for Jersey's Liberation Day celebrations.[6]

In 2006, the hotel was renovated for a visit by Queen Elizabeth II.[7] In 2012, the Pomme d'Or hosted the British–Irish Council for a discussion on the misuse of drugs in the British Isles.[8] In 2015, Jersey moved their Liberation Day celebrations away from Liberation Square and to the People's Park, which resulted in the Pomme d'Or not hosting the traditional flag-raising ceremony that year.[9] The celebrations and commemorative flag raising returned to the hotel the next year.[10]