St Helier

St Helier (; Jèrriais: ; ) is the capital of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. It is the most populous of the twelve parishes of Jersey, with a population of 35,822, over one-third of the island's total population. The town of St Helier is the largest settlement and only town of Jersey. The town consists of the built-up areas of St Helier, including First Tower, and parts of the parishes of St Saviour and St Clement, with further suburbs in surrounding parishes.

The greater part of the parish of St Helier is rural. It covers a surface area of , being 9% of the total land area of the island (this includes reclaimed land area of or 200 ha).

The town sits by the coast in the southeastern corner of the parish. Within it lies the main commercial district and the principal harbour of the island. As the capital, it also hosts the island's government, parliament and courts. Evidence of settlement exists as far back as the 13th century, and the growth of the town since has been described as "spasmodic", its expansion reflecting the waves of migration to the island.

The parish arms are two crossed gold axes on a blue background, the blue symbolising the sea, and the axes symbolising the martyrdom of Helier at the hands of Saxon pirates in 555 AD.

History

thumb|left|The Hermitage of Saint Helier lies in the bay off St Helier and is accessible on foot at low tide.

Saint

thumb|The face of [[Helier|St Helier as sculpted on the 1978 monument La Croix de la Reine in St Helier]]

St Helier is named after Helier (or Helerius), a 6th-century ascetic hermit from Belgium. The traditional date of his martyrdom is AD 555. His feast day, marked by an annual municipal and ecumenical pilgrimage to the Hermitage, is on 16 July.

The medieval hagiographies of Helier, the patron saint martyred in Jersey and after whom the parish and town are named, suggest a picture of a small fishing village on the dunes between the marshy land behind and the high-water mark.

An Abbey of Saint Helier was founded in 1155 on L'Islet, a tidal island adjacent to the Hermitage. Closed at the Reformation, the site of the abbey was fortified to create the castle that replaced Mont Orgueil as the island's major fortress. The new Elizabeth Castle was named after the Queen by the Governor of Jersey 1600–1603, Sir Walter Raleigh.

Early St Helier

The land now known as the town of St Helier was once not much more than a low-lying basin consisting of marshy lands and sand dunes (to the west), surrounded by low hills on other sides. There is very little evidence of prehistorical settlement in the St Helier basin; the archaeological site in the parish is an Iron Age dolmen, which used to sit atop Mont de la Ville (the present site of Fort Regent), but which was moved to the house of a former Governor in Henley-on-Thames in the 1780s. It is thought that the site of St Helier was settled at the time of the Roman control of Gaul.

By 540 AD, the monk Helerius (for whom the parish is named) had settled on the islet in the bay of St Aubin, now part of the parish and the modern-day site of Elizabeth Castle. From this hermitage, the monk converted the island's population to Christianity, but he was killed in 555 AD by seagoing raiders, attempting to defend the island. Therefore, his hermitage took on great spiritual significance. This establishment of Christianity as the principal religion of the islanders brought with it new governmental structures by the end of the 10th century, including the parochial system. It is believed the boundaries of the parish have not much changed since that time.

By the start of the 17th century, the town consisted of the modern Royal Square, Hill Street, Regent Road, Church Street, King Street, Queen Street and little else. The eastern gateway to the town was Snow Hill, where the roads from the eastern parishes met, and the western gateway Charing Cross (which led to the market square down Broad Street), where King Street met the sandy plains over which Westerners would travel to come to town. Therefore, King Street and Queen Street formed the core axis for St Helier at this time. Approaches to the town included La Motte Street (for St Saviour), Val Plaisant onto Old Street (for the northern parishes and the Town Mill), and St John's Road. The land to the north and southeast of the old town were of considerable value, cultivated as market gardens or planted as orchards. shows that the town at this period was only a small stub at the foot of Mont de la Ville, consisting of the main thoroughfare ( from Charing Cross through to La Colomberie) to the north of the Royal Square, at the time the town market. and Old St John's Hill were the primary connections up to the north, with connecting the town to its mill at Grands Vaux. In 1718, John Durell bought a number of St Helier fiefs and constructed a new gated street from King Street to Rue du Val.

This brought thousands of passengers to the town. By 1840, there were 5,000 English residents in Jersey, who some say did not mix well or interact deeply with the native Jèrriais. The number of English-speaking soldiers stationed on the island and the number of retired officers and English-speaking labourers who came to the islands in the 1820s led to the island gradually moving towards an English-speaking culture in St Helier. This new immigration had a large impact on local architecture, with a number of mainland Georgian-style houses and terraces erected on the main roads out of the town. It also expanded with many new streets, such as Burrard Street, first developed in 1812. In 1831, gas street lighting was first introduced on town roads. It is estimated that the number of houses by the mid-19th century was 2,600, 2,000 higher than just sixty years prior.

An explosion at a block of flats in Pier Road on 10 December 2022 killed at least eight people. The initial assumption is that it was caused by a gas leak.

Politics and government

Municipality

thumb|[[St Helier Town Hall]]

The parish has its own responsibilities, and elections to the municipality of St Helier take place to elect honorary officials who fulfill a variety of roles for parishioners under the overall control of the constable, two Procureurs du Bien Public and the Parish Assembly. Elected officials are supported by a paid administration within the parish.

Five members of the Roads Committee and ten Roads Inspectors are also elected by parishioners and ensure that the roads of the parish are kept in good repair. The members of the Assessment Committee are elected to agree to the rate chargeable to each property in the parish. The Accounts Committee are elected to ensure that the accounts of the Parish represent a 'true and fair view' of the state of the parish finances in order that the Parish Assembly may rely upon the information to set the parish rate. As with the other parishes, St Helier has an honorary police force.

The parish is divided into vingtaines for administrative purposes:

La Vingtaine de la Ville
Canton de Bas de la Vingtaine de la Ville
Canton de Haut de la Vingtaine de la Ville
La Vingtaine du Rouge Bouillon
La Vingtaine de Bas du Mont au Prêtre
La Vingtaine de Haut du Mont au Prêtre
La Vingtaine du Mont à l'Abbé
La Vingtaine du Mont Cochon

Conseil Municipal

The Conseil Municipal is a new municipal council for St Helier. The idea of creating a council was first floated in 1892; however, the idea was not put into place until November 2019, when it was agreed to establish a Shadow Conseil to trial the idea in 2020. The idea is to help the Parish to deliver the parish objectives.

It is composed of:

!District

!Vigntaines

!States members

| colspan="2" |Whole parish for

|Simon Crowcroft

|North

Vingtaine du Mont Cochon
Vingtaine du Mont à l'Abbé
Vingtaine de Haut du Mont au Prêtre

Inna Gardiner
Mary Le Hegarat
Max Andrews
Steve Ahier

|Central

Vingtaine de Bas du Mont au Prêtre
Vingtaine du Rouge Bouillon

Carina Alves
Catherine Curtis
Lyndsay Feltham
Robert Ward

|South

|Vingtaine de la Ville

Beatriz Porée
David Warr
Geoff Southern
Sam Mézec
Tom Coles

Capital city

St Helier is the de facto capital of Jersey as the main town and seat of both the civil government and legal system, though the seat of the Crown is Government House, St Saviour. The States Assembly – the legislative body – meets at the States Chamber, next to the Royal Court – the highest court of the island's judicial system. Both are based in the Royal Square. The executive is based temporarily at offices in Broad Street. New offices are being constructed at Cyril Le Marquand House on the Parade. As foreign relations are the responsibility of the UK, St Helier does not host any foreign embassies, though there are a number of honorary consulates for foreign governments with links to the Island (e.g. France and Portugal) based in the town.

Geography

St Helier is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey and is the most populated of them. It is located on the island's south coast, on the eastern end of St Aubin's Bay. It covers the majority, and the principal part of, the island's principal settlement (henceforth referred to as "the town"). A large part of the parish is rural.

The town has no clearly defined boundary and does not directly match any parish boundaries. The 2011 Island Plan defines the built-up area as including a large part of the Southern part of the parish (the contiguous built-up area within the parish, notably excluding parts of Mont à l'Abbé, Le Mont au Prêtre, Grands Vaux, and St Andrews), a part of St Saviour (however not the Five Oaks area, despite being part of the contiguous urban area) and the Georgetown-Plat Douet area of St Saviour and St Clement. Most of the town is located on low-lying land, consisting of escarpment and flood plain.

The town's centre is located entirely within the Parish of St Helier, and mostly consists of the area surrounding King Street and Queen Street. It also contains key buildings such as St Helier Town Hall and the States Building.

The parish has a population of 33,522 and a land area of 10.6 km<sup>2</sup>, making it the densest parish on the island.

The topography of the parish is one of the most varied. The marshland on which the town is situated is encircled by highlands which protect the town from the worst winds.

Summers on the island are mild to warm, breezy and often sunny. Heatwaves that the UK and mainland Europe experience do occur, but are less frequent and slightly less intense due to sea breezes. As the island is more subject to influence from the Azores High during summer compared with Great Britain, sunshine hours are higher due to the suppression of cumulus and stratocumulus cloud formation. This is consolidated by the surrounding ocean being relatively cool compared with the nearby land, creating a stable marine layer. Thunderstorms or severe weather are uncommon in this period, but can be sparked by a Spanish Plume event.

Rainfall is plentiful in autumn and winter but modest in spring and summer, with July being the driest month. Significant extratropical cyclones can affect the island during the autumn and winter period, the most damaging in recent times being the Great Storm of 1987 and Storm Ciarán, the latter of which produced an exceptionally destructive tornado that damaged eastern suburbs of St Helier in November 2023.

Winters on the island tend to be milder than in mainland Britain, being greatly moderated by the surrounding ocean. Snowfall and frost are highly unusual and have become rarer in recent decades. There are exceptions to this rule however; given the islands close proximity to continental Europe, a southeasterly wind component in tandem with a land breeze can import very cold continental air. The last significant snowfall was on 9 January 2024.

January is the coldest month with an average high of , and a low of . July is the warmest month, with an average high of , and a low of .

Sunshine hours are noticeably higher than in mainland UK and northern France averaging 2080 hours per year compared to 1670 hours in London. St Helier also set the record for the most sunshine ever reported in one calendar year in the British Isles.

Demography

thumb|A depiction of the Town of St Helier as it was in 1709

St Helier is the most populated of Jersey's parishes, with 33,522 residents according to the 2011 census.

Culture

St Helier contains cultural facilities at the Jersey Museum, the Maritime Museum, the Jersey Opera House, the Jersey Arts Centre, the performance venue of St James, the sports and entertainment facilities at Fort Regent, the Jersey Library, the library of La Société Jersiaise and the Jersey Archive.

The parish has hosted the Jersey Battle of Flowers carnival since 1902.

Media

The BBC has its regional centre in the town. It is the base of BBC Radio Jersey and for BBC Channel Islands regional programmes, the complex contains studios and offices. ITV Channel Television is also based in St Helier and broadcasts the regional programme, ITV News Channel TV on ITV1. Channel 103 is an Independent Local Radio station. The local newspaper is the Jersey Evening Post, which is printed six days a week, and has been in publication since 1890.

Public squares and parks

The Weighbridge

thumb|The Fete dé Noué Christmas Market in the Weighbridge in 2010

thumb|A view over the Weighbridge

The Weighbridge is a public space in the south of town. The modern space consists of three squares, trisected by La Route de la Libération and the Esplanade. The Weighbridge is notable for being the site of the Liberation of Jersey, when British soldiers raised the Union Flag at the Pomme d'Or Hotel, bringing a return to British rule in the island after five years under Nazi occupation.

In 1995, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jersey's liberation from Nazi occupation, and thus 50 years of peace, a sculpture was erected in the focal point for the celebrations when the island was liberated.

The sculpture was originally to depict islanders releasing doves of peace, but this came under fierce criticism, with some islanders remarking that had any doves been on the island during the occupation, they would have been eaten by starving German soldiers. Therefore, the sculpture was revised to show islanders raising the British flag, as they had done on the day of liberation 50 years previous.

The site is on reclaimed land and has served many purposes over the years. The initial weighbridge was constructed in 1825. The town terminus of the Jersey Railway was opened here in 1870. A statue of Queen Victoria was initially located in what is now Weighbridge Place (it has been relocated to Victoria Park at West Park). This area also served as the island's bus terminus until the opening of Liberation Station in 2005.

In the 1990s, Liberation Square was built in front of the Pomme D'Or for the 50th anniversary of Liberation. It features a statue of islanders holding up a Union Flag. The circular forms of the square represent free thought and liberation. There is a moat around the statue representing the sea and twelve representing the parishes of the island.

The Parade

thumb|The statue of former Governor Don in Parade Gardens

The Parade is a wide area in the west of St Helier, incorporating a park in the centre and roads around most of the edges. The area is home to the Cenotaph and General Hospital. It is known as Les Mielles in Jèrriais, meaning sand dunes.

It was initially a drilling ground for the island's troops. The original hospital building was completed in 1768, but was originally used as barracks. The Cenotaph was constructed in 1923 to commemorate those islanders who lost their lives in the First World War (however has also been expanded to the Second World War), designed by Charles de Gruchy. It is the focal site for Rememebrance Day celebrations on the island.

Millennium Town Park

thumb|Millenium Park in 2012

This is the newest park in St Helier, opened on a former car park site in 2011. Its creation was initially agreed in 2000; however, plans stalled due to a lack of funds. The park has water features, sculptures, a playground and an area to play ball games. It also has a cycle path through the centre of it.

The site has contributed to local regeneration, with new developments nearby such as Merchant's Square and the Gas Place development.

Charing Cross

thumb|Le Crapaud of Charing Cross

Formerly the site of the prison in the 17th century, Charing Cross is a square at the western end of King Street. There is a monument of a Toad ("Le Crapaud"). It was erected in 2004 as part of the commemoration of 800 years of allegiance to the English Crown. On the side, there are inscribed extracts from the Code Le Geyt. Across the road, there is La Croix de la Reine, a cross erected to commemorate the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977. Recently, the Co-operative building on the square was redeveloped, with a new food store and the island's first Premier Inn.

St Andrew's Park

St Andrew's Park is located around St Andrew's Church in First Tower. It was donated by the Seigneur of Mélèches in 1911. Two neolithic dolmens can be found at St Andrew's Park near the main road which date to 2800 and 2300 BCE.

Landmarks

Many places in St Helier have been formally listed as Sites of Special Interest by the Planning and Environment department of Jersey.

Elizabeth Castle

thumb|The castle viewed from the town, with the duck ferry running in its amphibious form

Elizabeth Castle is a 16th-century castle located on a tidal island off the coast of the town. It was constructed to supplement the defence provided by Mont Orgeuil in St Martin. It is now a museum and tourist attraction, administered by Jersey Heritage. It can be accessed by a causeway at low tide, which becomes inundated at high tide, and a duck ferry, which runs on land at low tide and by sea at high tide.

Fort Regent

thumb|Fort Regent

Fort Regent is located at the top of the Mont de la Ville. It was initially constructed as a barracks at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. It was decided to develop it into a leisure complex in 1967. There was a cable car that gave access to Fort Regent from Snow Hill. However, it was closed in 1991. There also used to be a swimming pool that opened in 1971, but it was knocked down in 2020.

A tunnel (A17) was opened under the Fort on 25 February 1970 after seven years of construction. The tunnel links traffic from the east to the west of the island, and allowed for the pedestrianisation of the town centre.

Central Market and Beresford Market

thumb|Central Market

Central Market, in Beresford Street, St Helier, is an indoor market that was opened in 1882. It is an official Site of Special Interest, and is popular with tourists and locals. It features Victorian architecture including cast iron structures, and an ornamental fountain in the centre. The market was designed by Thomas Helliwell of Brighouse, Yorkshire, working with Bellamy and Hardy of Lincoln.

The market comprises stalls selling flowers, fruit and vegetables, as well as small shops and cafés.

Beresford Market is a separate building next to the Central Market and specialises in fishmongery.

16 New Street

This is an 18th-century Georgian townhouse, with some 19th century additions, which has been renovated by the National Trust for Jersey, and is now operated as a museum.

Transport

thumb|The Underpass, near Liberation Square in the south of St Helier. In the background is the new International Finance Centre. Le Grand Douet runs underneath this road.

The primary road network in the parish consists of the St Helier Ring Road (part of which is located in St Saviour) and a series of A roads branching from there to the surrounding parishes, such as Victoria Avenue. Under Fort Regent, a road tunnel connects the West and the East of the island together.

The parish is responsible for the upkeep of by-roads (chemins vicinaux) within its boundaries, managed by the Roads Committee. The Government is responsible for main roads.

The parish contains Liberation Station, the bus terminus for the island's public transport network. Every bus route on the island terminates in St Helier and the parish has bus connections to every settlement on the island. A number of bus services provide a direct connection to Jersey Airport in St Peter. In 2022, the TownLink service was introduced which provides a local service within St Helier.

The parish contains the island's main port, with ferry services to Saint-Malo, Poole and Portsmouth.

Religious sites

The parish church is known as the Town Church and is the oldest building in St Helier, located on Church Street, across from the Royal Court. It predates the Battle of Hastings and has been altered and enlarged a number of times since. After the Reformation, the church became a Huguenot temple and eight successive Rectors were French Huguenot ministers. In 1842, due to the rising population of St Helier, the Dean of Jersey raised money to replace the church with a larger building; however, it was never built. The Rector of the Town Church is normally co-officially the Dean of Jersey. Charles II attended service in the Town Church a number of times before and during his reign.

The state-owned Jersey Development Company, which owns much of the land in the area, is managing the redevelopment and has contracted Gillespies, a landscape architecture firm, after a concept design competition. As of June 2021, the proposals include demolishing the existing Waterfront Centre buildings, redesigning the existing Jardins de la Mer and Waterfront Gardens parks, creating new public squares and new single-phase signalised crossings across Route de la Libération.

Twin towns and sister cities

St Helier is twinned with:

Funchal, Madeira, Portugal
Avranches, France
Bad Wurzach, Germany
Trenton, New Jersey, United States
Mykolaiv, Ukraine

Sport

The parish has a number of sports facilities, including Springfield Stadium Home of Jersey Bulls FC(incorporating the island's football pitch), Aquasplash (swimming pool), pétanque pitches, badminton and the Fort Regent leisure centre. Motorsports events take place on roads in the Parish as well as an annual Town Criterium, and the start and finish of the Jersey Marathon.

In 2021, the Government of Jersey published a report Inspiring Active Places Strategy. The strategy will have a total cost of circa £100 million. The plan proposes the removal of sports facilities from Fort Regent by early 2022, which is "beyond the end of its useful life". The report states it is not the best location for health and fitness facilities for St Helier residents. Therefore, by the end of 2021, there will be the need to create temporary or alternative facilities to enable sport relocation from Fort Regent.

Springfield will be refurbished to provide better public active facilities and a new town community park, with the single stadium pitch replaced with two smaller 5-a-side pitches by 2026/27. However, in the interim, parts of Springfield will be redeveloped to provide more parking.

The plan includes the reprovision of facilities from Fort Regent. By 2030, a new leisure centre will be constructed in the town centre, on the site of the Waterfront centre. The leases on the current Waterfront development terminate in 2027. It will include a large swimming pool, with minimal spectator provision, and of health and fitness space. This will re-accommodate the Aquasplash facility, which will be demolished, and the current fitness facilities at the Fort. Due to the high-density town centre location, there is the opportunity to construct a three-story residential site above the facility.

Notable people

Sir George Carteret (b. 1610), royal statesman, slave trader and first lord proprietor of the British colony of New Jersey, born in St Helier
Henry Cavill (b. 1983), actor, known for playing Superman in the DC Extended Universe, and Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher
John St Helier Lander, artist
Graeme Le Saux, former Chelsea FC and English football player
Henry Poingdestre (1832?–1885) was a New Zealand runholder, rabbit farmer and eccentric, born in St. Helier
Vaughn Toulouse (born Vaughn Cotillard; 30 July 1959 – 8 August 1991), British singer; founding member of Guns for Hire and its successor band Department S, both of which emerged from the late 70s British punk rock scene;

References

General bibliography

Balleine's History of Jersey, Marguerite Syvret and Joan Stevens (1998) .
Jersey in Figures, 2003–2004, published by the States of Jersey.