A lifetime of Islands: Island 230 - Jersey, Channel Islands

Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands and despite only being 9 miles from east to west and 5 miles from north to south it currently has a population of 99,0000. There are many visitor attractions and facilities e.g. hotels, cafés and restaurants. The economy of the island is currently based on financial services/banking, tourism and agriculture (e.g. Jersey Royal potatoes and Jersey cows), in that order of importance. Jersey only became an island in about 6,500 BC as sea levels rose after the end of the last ice age.

My first visit in June/July 2014 was 20 years overdue. I had booked to visit the island for the day back in about 1994 on a day trip from Southend Airport. It was lovely and sunny in Southend-on-Sea but sadly foggy in Jersey. After waiting for 3 hours we claimed our money back and went home. 20 years later I had more success in flying to Jersey - this time from Exeter - with a friend.

Our purpose was to walk the whole of the 48.5 mile coastline and mine was of course also to collect as many tidal islands as possible while doing this. We finished the coast path in 5 days and spent another 2 days as tourists but we didn't have time to visit many of the visitor attractions. The coast path is mainly road or pavement from Gorey to St Aubin but the rest of it is quiet footpaths. The north coast is the hilliest, as the island slopes downwards from north to south, but it is also the most scenic. After 2 days we worked out that the blue paint marks on signposts, rocks and occasionally just on the ground were official waymarks for the coast path.

You can fly to Jersey from most UK regional airports and a few mainland European ones. You can also travel there by ferry from Weymouth, Poole or Portsmouth in England or St Malo, Granville or Barneville-Carteret in France. I usually take my car everywhere with me if there is a car ferry. However taking a car to the Channel Islands is expensive and the roads on Jersey are often narrow lanes and those anywhere near St Helier were very congested. The speed limit is supposed to be 40 miles an hour maximum and much less on the green lanes but some drivers drive faster than this and many of them didn't slow down on sighting pedestrians. Most of the roads outside St Helier have no pavement.

Despite the lack of pavements and the fast drivers, you don't really need to bring or hire a car, as the bus service is excellent. The buses are frequent, cover most of the island and were all very clean. They are very popular with both residents and visitors but are not fast, as they stop frequently to pick up and drop off passengers and because all the routes radiate out from St Helier, which is very congested, progress is slow. You can buy 1, 3 and 7 day bus passes, which we did. As well as working out cheaper for us, it also means you don't have to have an endless supply of cash to buy the tickets. There is a free booklet, which lists all the timetables and a map of all the bus routes, which you can pick up at Liberation Station, which is the central bus station in St Helier. It is the best bus station I have ever visited - it is clean, has plenty of seats, a lovely café and screens showing departures for the next couple of hours - times and from which stop they are departing.

We picked up 2 free maps of the island, which showed all the roads and the visitor attractions at the Airport and Liberation Station. These would be adequate for navigating round St Helier and the rest of the island. However for £8.50 you can buy an official 1:25,000 scale map of the island, which I would recommend.

St Helier is the only town on Jersey and it dominates the island. It is a pleasant enough town but most of it is architecturally unremarkable and very full of cars. We didn't have time to explore it properly and didn't really want to. It has lots of shops, cafés and restaurants. There are a few parks and quieter squares but there is a dual carriageway running along the seafront, which separates it from the town.

We stayed at the Jersey Accommodation and Activity Centre above Gorey, which was formerly the Haut de la Garenne Children's Home, which gained notoriety in 2008 when it became the focus of an investigation into widespread child abuse. It is a cheap place to stay but we made the assumption that it was hostel accommodation and would therefore come with facilities like a drying room and a kitchen. We were wrong - if you want to use the kitchen it costs an additional £5 per day! There were signs to a lounge and a TV room but we never found either of them. The room we had was clean, an adequate size and had en suite facilities. The price, which was cheap, includes an unimaginative but adequate continental breakfast and towels but there were no tea and coffee making facilities in the room (there was a vending machine downstairs but I thought 50p for a cup of hot water was a bit on the steep side). You aren't allowed to keep food in your room and there is no access to a fridge, so unless you want to eat lunch and dinner out every day, it probably isn't the place for you. The staff were polite but uninterested in us.

Our initial plan had been to stay at the Durrell Wildlife Hostel for the whole of our holiday but it was only available for the last 2 nights of our stay. I thoroughly recommend it as a place to stay. Our room was small and not en suite but the staff are very friendly, there are plenty of washrooms and toilets, a comfortable lounge and you can use the kitchen and the fridge. A self-service continental breakfast is included. You also get a free day pass to Durrell Wildlife Park. Your stay at the hostel helps support the work of the Durrell Wildlife Trust and the buses from St Helier stop about 200 metres away at the far end of the car park. Early in the morning you can hear the lemurs shouting to each other and watch red squirrels playing in the garden - why would you want to stay anywhere else?

Gerald Durrell opened Jersey Zoo in 1958 as a sanctuary and breeding centre for some of the world's most endangered animals. It has since been renamed the Durrell Wildlife Park. It doesn't have any very large animals like elephants, zebras or giraffes but is well worth a visit. You do need time and patience to spot some of the animals in their landscaped enclosures but it is well worth the effort, apart from the aye-aye, which is housed in a very dark room and it is almost impossible to see anything in it let alone an aye-aye! There is a programme of talks throughout the day and we went to the ones about the gorillas and the fruit bats, which were very informative. Highlights of the day for me were the orangutans, ring-tailed lemurs and the meerkats. I never did spot the giant tortoise - perhaps he or she was posing as a rock! There is also a reptile and amphibian house and several aviaries. The cafés are quite pricey but the coffee cake is delicious and you do get a very big slice - almost too big really, as it is very rich. I can also recommend the Thai take-away that they run from the café at the visitor centre on Friday and Saturday evenings.

In case you have ever wondered why the Channel Islands are British Crown Dependencies, despite being located only 14 miles from France, it is thanks to the Vikings. They took control of Normandy in the 10th century and in 933 the Channel Islands were incorporated into their Duchy of Normandy. William the Conqueror successfully invaded and added England to his territorial possessions in 1066. In 1204 when King John lost his land in Normandy, the Channel Islands chose to remain loyal to the English crown in return for a greater deal of autonomy, which they still have today. As Crown Dependencies they are not part of the UK or full members of the EU. The English spent the next 600 years defending the islands against French attack/invasion, which is why there are so many forts and castles around the coast of Jersey.

Mont Orgueil was first fortified in the 13th century to protect Jersey against invasion by the French. By the 16th century warfare had changed and it was no longer adequate, so Elizabeth Castle was built. 22 round towers and one square one (Seymour Tower) were constructed around the coast of Jersey on the orders of the governor Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway from 1779. 17 of them are still there. Some of the surviving towers have been painted on their seaward sides as daymarks. 8 Martello Towers were constructed in the first half of the 19th century. 7 of the Martello Towers are still standing, the other one was destroyed by the Germans in World War 2.

The earliest inhabited site found on Jersey is La Cotte de St Brelade - this is a cave to the south of Ouaisne Bay. It was first occupied 250,000 years ago.

In June 1940 it was the Germans who succeeded in capturing the Channel Islands, after Churchill decided that they were undefendable. Jersey was occupied until 9th May 1945. The Germans built a huge number of concrete bunkers and defences on the east, south and west coasts and also adapted existing forts and towers.

We didn't have time to visit most of the tourist attractions but the main ones are:

Elizabeth Castle - on 3 tidal islands - see islands numbers 236-238
War Tunnels
Samares Manor Gardens - designed in the 1920s by shipping magnate and philanthropist Sir James Knott
Durrell Wildlife Park
Mont Orgueil Castle
St Matthew's Glass Church at Millbrook
St Brelades Church (beach stones are imbedded in the walls and ceilings) and Fishermen's Chapel (medieval wall paintings)
Eric Young Orchid Foundation
Jersey Lavender Farm
Mansell Collection (Nigel) - cars
La Hougue Bie - this is one of the largest and best preserved Neolithic passage graves in Europe. There are also 2 medieval chapels on top of the mound, a memorial to the slave labourers who worked on Jersey during the Second World War and an exhibition of geological and archaeological finds.
Jersey Maritime Museum and Occupation Tapestry
Jersey Museum and Art Gallery
Le Moulin de Quétivel - a water mill and the last remaining working mill on the island
La Mare Wine Estate - they produce wines, ciders, spirits and black butter (a sticky substance made from apples, sugar, cider, spices and liquorice, which you can spread on bread)
Noirmont Command Bunker
Jersey Pearl
16 New Street - finest remaining Georgian town house in St Helier
Jersey's Living Legend - golf course, karting, adventure playground, shops, crafts and an multi-sensory history of Jersey
Greve de Lecq Barracks - built 1810-15 to house British troops when there was a threat of invasion by the French under Napoleon.
Reg's Garden, St Brelade
Pallot Steam, Motor & General Museum
Channel Islands Military Museum
Battle of the Flowers Museum
Hamptonne Country Life Museum
aMaizin! Adventure Park - includes a maize maze
The Forgotten Forest - The Val De La Mare Arboretum
Boat trips to the reefs of Les Ecrehous and Les Minquiers - these are on my list for my next visit.

The above would keep most visitors occupied for at least a couple of weeks!

There are lots of expensive cafés and restaurants on Jersey but there are also lots of much more reasonably priced beach cafes. Our favourite was Mad Mary's Café at Bouley Bay - the millionaire's shortbread is highly recommended and Mad Mary herself is very friendly and helpful. We also liked the mobile café at Bonne Nuit Harbour and the Jersey Pottery Café at Liberation Station.

The only squirrels on Jersey are red ones. We saw one near Noirmont and several in the garden of Durrell Wildlife Hostel. While looking for a geocache at La Pulente on the south west coast I spotted one of the island's large green lizards. It is the only place in Britain where they occur naturally.

Le Pinacle, Les Landes, NW corner of the island

Jersey Tower at Ouaisne Common - painted to act as a navigational marker

Noirmont Tower at the foot of the cliffs - dates from around 1810


Dolmen de Faldouet above Gorey - a Neolithic burial chamber dated to about 2500 BC. The capstone weighs around 23 tonnes.

The Glass Church - St Matthews at Millbrook

The church was built in 1840 but in the 1930s Rene Lalique was commissioned by Lady Trent to decorate the interior in memory of her husband Jessie Boot (founder of Boots the Chemist). Panels, pillars, windows, doors and the cross above the altar are made of opalescent glass. It is well worth a visit. I have been in hundreds of churches but never seen anything like this.

Gorey's floral boat


Who are these strange people - a tall man with a walking stick and a woman in a long dress holding on to her hat?

Gorey Harbour at low tide

The ruins of Grosnez Castle in the north west corner of Jersey - built in the 14th century and believed to have been destroyed by the French in the same century

Plemont Beach

- it looked lovely but it was a long walk down to it, so we just looked at it from above.

La Greve de Lecq Beach - one of my favourites

Orangutan statue at Durrell Wildlife Park

Ring-tailed lemurs' playtime at Durrell Wildlife Park

Rozel Harbour on a rainy day

Jersey Airport - first opened in 1937

Fort Henry - originally called Fort Conway. It was built in the 1760s, modified by the Germans during the Occupation and is now in the middle of the Royal Jersey Golf Course

Helping Hand Sculpture at La Corbiere

It commemorates the rescue of all 307 people on board a French catamaran, which ran aground nearby in 1995.

German Observation Tower over looking La Corbiere- it has been converted into holiday accommodation

Le Don Hilton aka The White House, St Ouen on the west coast
It was originally built as a powder magazine in the 18th century, then converted into a cottage. It is now owned by the National Trust for Jersey and can be rented as basic self-catering accommodation.

La Rocque Harbour

L'Ile Agois on the north coast

Bonne Nuit Bay from La Crete

Liberation Sculpture in Liberation Square, St Helier

Jersey War Tunnels
These were constructed by forced labourers (mainly Prisoners of War from Eastern Europe) for the Germans during the Second World War. They were used as a bomb proof barracks for German troops and in 1943 they were converted into a hospital in case the British invaded, which they didn't.

Mont Orgueil Castle, Gorey

Jersey Round Tower near Le Rocque
Some of these towers have been painted as navigational aids, some have been converted into houses. This one has been neglected but makes a very attractive ruin.