18th century

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 marketplaceThe Royal Square was also the scene of the Battle of Jersey on 6 January 1781, the last attempt by French forces to seize Jersey. George II gave £200 towards the construction of a new harbour – previously boats would be beached on a falling tide and unloaded by cart across the sand.

19th century

Military roads linking coastal defences around the island with St Helier harbour allowed farmers to exploit Jersey’s temperate micro-climate and use new fast sailing ships and then steamships to get their produce to the markets of London and Paris before the competition. This was the start of Jersey’s agricultural prosperity in the 19th century.

20th Century

In the 1960s, income from the Jersey States Lottery was used to excavate a two-lane road tunnel under Fort Regent, enabling traffic from the harbour to the east coast towns to avoid a torturous route around the fort. About the same time, the Fort was converted into a major leisure facility and was linked to the town centre by a gondola cableway – closed and demolished in the 1990s.

21th Century

Liberation Square is now a focal point in the town – the former terminus of the Jersey Railway housed the Jersey Tourism office until 2007