Friday 4th April 2025
The Jersey Chamber Weekly Update
Dear Subscriber,
Making a name for themselves
This week everyone suddenly started talking about Fort Regent again. Fort - because it was a fort, and Regent – well because we named it after the Prince Regent King George IV in 1814.
Prior to being a fort, it was a communal area overlooking the town and during the construction of the fort in 1785, they found a dolmen. We gave that dolmen to our outgoing LG of the time Field Marshall Conway, whilst we kept Conway Street as a name.
Apparently, the large granite stones of the dolmen didn't exactly fit in his carry-on luggage, but as leaving gifts go, he didn't want to appear ungrateful over the 2-ton lump of rock gifts so he had to take them with him and sailed it up the Thames to his country pile in Henley upon Thames, and stuck them in the grounds out of view, hoping to re-gift it one day. They are still there I think, covered in brambles and unappreciated. Last time I checked about 10 years ago, the country estate was in private ownership and the Russian owner rather difficult to contact. Might be worth another look at getting that back…
And I know we talk about the delays and time it takes to get something done, but in 1550 the King ordered that the town should move to the hill above it – it never did.
41 years later in 1591 some plans were drawn up and sent to Elizebeth 1st, nothing much happened. By 1757 there was some earthworks giving an outline of some boundaries, and then they actually started building the fort in 1806 with General Don (Don Street, Don Road, Don Farm) laying the foundation stone. It then took 8 years to build. 264 years in total then.
Anyhow, Fort Regent has an incredible timeline and features in the Chamber archives many times since we started in 1768.
In more recent history there was a Chamber Fort Regent Committee in the mid-sixties, pushing the Government to develop the fort and provide sporting facilities. Plenty of back and forth went on until we got to open the Fort with the1971 leisure complex that we now need to rejuvenate and rethink.
For all the good reasons, beyond the nostalgia of cable cars and the best concert you ever saw there, we now get to have our collective say again.
If the plans, once finalised are approved and the States Assembly approve the £110m investment, they'd start in January 2026 for the best part of three years in rebuilding something much needed.
Added to other projects in the pipeline of both public and private development frankly it's exciting. I guess we will become jaded by the inevitable moan-fest noise that surrounds these changes, but these milestone improvements are required, and the alternative is to do nothing, which is not a desirable outcome for the fort or the island.
It will support our economy during the build and then more so once completed. It will provide better facilities for locals year-round and give more reasons to come to Jersey as a visitor or a potential resident. And in the next 10 years we need all of these things.
We celebrated the old Fort Regent leisure complex with a mascot - Humfrey the Lion. He was named after the designer of the old military fort, Lieutenant-General John Humfrey. I’m sure he would have been so delighted with that!
I'm wondering what our next mascot will be and who it'll get named after… Lyndon the… Andy the… Tom the…
Have a great weekend.
Murray,
