History Of St. Helier

It is thought that the site of St Helier was settled at the time of the Roman control of Gaul.

The medieval writings of Helier, who is the patron saint of St. Helier, suggest a picture of a small fishing village on the dunes between the marshy land behind and the high-water mark.

Currently, the St. Helier parish church is some distance from the sea but at the time of its original construction it was on the edge of the dunes at the closest practical point to the offshore island called the Hermitage (where Helier was supposedly martyred). Before land reclamation and port construction started, boats could be tied up to the churchyard wall on the seaward side.

An abbey of St Helier was founded in 1155 on L’Islet, which was an island that becomes submerged at high tide, adjacent to the Hermitage. The site of the abbey was fortified to create the Elizabeth Castle that replaced Mont Orgueil as the Island’s major fortress.

As centuries moved on, St. Helier constantly expanded from the string of houses and shops that it was in the 18th century through building structures such as the harbour and the tunnel in 1960s. Now that St. Helier has reclaimed the land that was planned, they are now focusing on filling all of the empty plots on the parish to create a busy and modern environment.

My Area Of Focus

On Tuesday 19th June I will be photographing the area shown in orange on the map at the top of this post. This area of town contains lots of history and landmarks which will be interesting to capture photographs of.  Some points of interest that I will be looking at is the Victoria College due to the architecture of it and the history behind it, and lots of local businesses such as the Mayfair hotel in order to capture environmental portraits of the people of St. Helier as archival-photographers such as Albert Smith did in the earlier stages of St. Helier