First Tower Park

First Tower Park

First Tower Park, pictured here in 1938, also known to some, incorrectly, as St Andrew's Park, lies to the north of St Aubin's Road between First Tower and Boulevard Avenue. It is Jersey's oldest enclosed public park

Gervaise Le Gros, who gave the land on which the park was created

First Tower Park was opened in 1911, the land, known as Clos de Devant, having been donated by Gervaise Le Gros, Seigneur of the Fief de Priaux de Mont Cochon.

In 1869 the Ville-ès-Nouaux Neolithic dolmen was discovered on the land where the park would later be built. Apart from the damage done by quarrymen looking for stone before La Société Jersiaise were alerted, the dolmen has been preserved and it is today a feature of the lower section of the park.

A large open grassed area above has been used for sports activities by First Tower School and next to it is a children's playground.

Also in the park is St Andrew's Church which opened in 1927 to replace the original St Andrew's, a chapel at the Esplanade, which had existed as a chapel under the stewardship of the Parish Church of St Helier since the mid-19th century. It is because of the presence of the church that the park is sometimes wrongly called St Andrew's Park, but these dates indicate that the park came first.

The dolmen

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  When first discovered, the dolmen was in the open ...
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  ... but by the 1950s it was in deep shade at the centre of a copse of mature trees
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  An aerial view of the dolmen taken from a drone by Chris Brookes, showing that some of the trees had been removed to open the view again
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  Lorries parked during a Sunday School outing
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  A fete in the park in 1932
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  One of two St Aubin's Road gates
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  The church viewed through the trees in 1980 - Picture Jersey Evening Post

1938