Hill Street runs from Snow Hill to the junction with Church Street (the corner of St Helier Parish Church), where it becomes Mulcaster Street and continues to the Weighbridge. It starts as an open area with a wide pavement on one side and a grassy bank on the other, leading to Snow Hill car park, which used to be the site of the St Helier terminus of the Jersey Eastern Railway, but soon narrows as it passes through two lines of largely old buildings, now providing office accommodation. This was never a major shopping street and today there are no shops left.
After the junction with Halkett Place the road passes along the back of the States Building before reaching the Town Church.
Jean Le Capelain, one of Jersey's most famous artists, lived in the street.
Throughout the 20th century Hill Street was synonymous with the island's legal profession, most of the main lawyers' practices being situated there. The enormous growth in the size of these practices means that they have almost all moved away from Hill Street into large office blocks elsewhere in the town and only three or four of the smallest practices remain in their traditional home.
Otherwise Hill Street is home to a variety of small finance centre operations, recruitment agencies, and, at the Snow Hill end, bars and take-aways which provide refreshments for the office workers in the vicinity.
The road has long been a one-way traffic route, flowing from east to west, and is still a busy artery carrying traffic from all parts of the town and its periphery towards the Weighbridge, where it divides to head east through the Tunnel or west along the Esplanade.
As today's English name, and the former Rue du Pied de la Montagne suggest, the road runs at the foot of Mont de la Ville (Town Hill) on which Fort Regent was built in the 19th century.
Gallery
This property was demolished in the late 20th century
16 Hill Street in 1985 - Mourant du Feu and Jeune
20 Hill Street in 1953
24 Hill Street in 1985
34 Hill Street
35 Hill Street
4 Hill Street in 1965
No 31
No 47
No 49
Ferbrache Antiques, now demolished ....
... and the building it made way for
20 Hill Street
27 Hill Street was home to the Grand Hotel de Calvados after a fire in the earlier building on the corner of the Royal Square and Church Street
Taxi rank in 1963
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Hill Street businesses
G P Benest ran an auction and furniture depot business in Hill Street in the mid-19th century
Bott or Botts, the paperhanger and decorators' supplies business operated from 18 Hill Street in the mid-19th century
Scottish Provincial Assurance
G D Laurens, 1894
1966
1905
1905
1886
1895
1948
1948
1873 advert
1887 advert from L'Almanach de la Gazette de Jersey
1897
1896
Bellingham's started as Jersey's first travel agent, at 6 Mulcaster Street, in the early years of the 20th century, and then moved to No 1, on the border with Hill Street. We have found no other record, apart from this advertisement (date unknown) to confirm that they moved again to Hill Street, before moving to the corner of Queen Street and Bath Street in the 1950s. It is possible that they believed Hill Street to be a 'posher' address than Mulcaster Street after their move from No 6 to No 1.
In 1862 Bishop and Co's Percy House in Hill Street sold ladies' fashions and household linen. In 2021 there was not a single retail outlet in the street, running from Snow Hill to Mulcaster Street
