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Saint Helier is the largest town in Jersey as well as being one of the 12 parishes of Jersey. It has a population of about 28,000, and is the capital of the Island.
Industry
St Helier is home to a small fishing fleet and a large array of luxury yauts. Until recentley, the production of early flowers and potatoes was a significant sector of the loacal economy but this has declined in recent years with the advent of the UK supermarkets sourcing products from Africa. The major industry is Tourism. There is a wide range of accomodation available including bed and breakfast, hotel accommodation, self catering, guest house, cottage, Camping and caravan sites.
Geography
The parish covers a surface area of 4.1 square miles, being 9% of the total land area of the island.
History
The site of St. Helier was settled at the time of the Roman control of Gaul. The medieval lives 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.
Although the Parish Church of St Helier is now some considerable distance from the sea, at the time of its original construction it was on the edge of the dunes at the closest practical point to the offshore islet called the Hermitage (site of Helier's witness and martyrdom). An Abbey of St. 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.
Until the end of the 18th century, the town consisted chiefly of a string of houses, shops and warehouses stretching along the coastal dunes either side of the Church of St. Helier and the adjacent marketplace. The market cross in the centre of the square was pulled down at the Reformation, and the iron cage for holding prisoners was replaced by a prison gatehouse at the western edge of town.
The statue of King George II in the Royal Square is the zero milestone from which all distances in Jersey are measured. King George II gave £200 towards the construction of a new harbour. A statue of the king was erected in the square in 1751 in gratitude. Many of St. Helier's road names and street names are bilingual English/French or English/Jčrriais, some having only one name though, although the names in the various languages are not usually translations. The Royal Square was also the scene of the Battle of Jersey on January 6, 1781, the last attempt by French forces to seize Jersey.
Continuing military threats from France spurred the construction of a citadel fortress, Fort Regent, on the Mont de la Ville, the crag dominating the shallow basin of St. Helier. From the 1820s, peace with France and better communications enabled by steamships and railways to coastal ports encouraged an influx of English-speaking residents. Speculative development covered the marshy basin north of the central coastal strip as far as the hills within a period of about 40 years, providing the town with terraces of elegant town houses. In the second half of the 19th century, the need to facilitate access to the harbour for hundreds of trucks laden with potatoes and other produce for export prompted a programme of road-widening which swept away many of the ancient buildings of the town centre. Pressure for redevelopment has meant that very few buildings remain in urban St. Helier which date to before the 19th century, giving the town primarily a Regency or Victorian character.
In 1995, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jersey being liberated from Nazi occupation, and thus 50 years of peace, a sculpture was erected in what is now called Liberation Square, in front of the Pomme d'Or Hotel, the focal point for the celebrations when the island was originally liberated.
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