"Houmet" redirects here, for further information on the placename element, please see "-hou"

Les Houmets are to the east of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Their name derives from a diminutive of hou, a Norman/Guernésiais word meaning islets. They are tidal islands.

Amongst the islets are Houmet Benest/Houmet Benêt, Houmet Paradis and Houmet Hommetol (Omptolle). Although Victor Hugo suggests that they were heavily eroded by quarrying (which was certainly true in the case of Crevichon off Herm), Victor Coysh disagrees saying:

Victor Hugo who wrote about many of the Channel Islands in his books, described Les Houmets, in his work The Toilers of the Sea (Les Travailleurs de la mer). Gilliat, the main character lives on Houmet Paradis:

Moreover, this house had some very nasty inhabitants besides Gilliat,

The novel was written in the 1860s and set in the 1820s when the islands were still inhabited.

Houmet Benest/Benêt is about two hundred yards (180 m) from the shore, preceded by a small rock called "Hommet" from the same root. It is triangular, and 80 × 50 yards (73 × 45 m). There is an 18th century gun battery here, to defend against the French. The German occupation added their own, and the British another after the Germans left. The steamer Clarrie sank off Houmet Benêt in 1921, in the Great Roussel. Heathery Brae in 1952 tried to salvage it, but ended up being wrecked itself, and there are also the wrecks of Vixen (a brig), Rescue (a tug) and Romp (a cutter) went ashore here. It is covered in grass and brambles.