1700 –
Illustrated in 1790 This showed the first example of development of a Harbour in St Helier. Built in 1700, the French and English Harbour (the 2 buildings highlighted in red) are older than any harbour on the Island. These served as the only port for Jersey’s larger ships until construction began of the North pier in 1790 to 1821.
Here shows a map of the harbour in 1834, The North pier is now present opposite the French Harbour. Later expanded upon in 1887 to 97 this became the New North Quay as seen today.
To improve the Harbours capacity, development of a new pier from 1847 to 1853 began. Named after the Prince Consort, Albert, this was announced on his second royal visit in 1859. Later on, Victoria pier, named after the current monarch at the time, was constructed from around 1841 to 1846.
Photos of the Piers reconstruction in the 1930’s:
Within the 20th century developments where made to provide new usages of the harbour, The tanker berth was built to allow for tankers to offload fuel and oil supplies close by to the fuel farm. Victoria Pier became a Yacht Basin, with a deep-water harbour for leisure craft and areas for the islands fishing fleet.
With the La Collette land reclamation scheme in the 1970s, areas of the harbour expanded such as the area behind the French Harbour.
In the 1980s, the Elizabeth Harbour and its terminal building for passenger transport and separated freight area was planned and finally completed in 1989.
After the Harbours final installation, Marinas began to appear where ports no longer had a use for freight shipping. St Helier Marina, opened in 1981 included nearly 400 berths. in 1998 the Elizabeth Marina was opened which held 600 berths, mainly for local boat owners. As mentioned before areas such as the old harbour and French and English harbours became a spot for other boats, unlike the Elizabeth marina, these where located within the harbour which when the tide would go out would not leave the boats afloat. Again with the La Collette land reclamations, a Yacht Basin was installed, this like the other 2 was mainly made for local residences.
As Jersey’s population increases, many inhabitants, cramped on this small island hold the desire for travel. As a result, in recent years, plans have been put forward to redevelop the aging Elizabeth Terminal.
As shown in the image above, this shows the plans in mind to facilitate creating a safeguard of the Islands supply chain, increase in capacity of handling future freight requirements, and overall, improving travel capability for Jersey.
– 2024