Information Pack

About Jersey Heritage

 The Jersey Heritage Trust (“Jersey Heritage”) is the Island’s official museums, archives and historic buildings organisation.  We want to help everyone to protect, discover and enjoy learning about Jersey’s heritage.

We are an independent charity, founded in 1981, receiving about 53% of our funding from the States of Jersey.  Other income is generated through activities such as admissions charges, sponsorship and venue hire.

Jersey Heritage manages historic buildings, monuments and collections held in trust on behalf of the Société Jersiaise, the National Trust for Jersey and the States of Jersey as well as those we own.

We are governed by a Board of Trustees operating under a constitution agreed by the Government of Jersey, and according to the terms of a Service Level Agreements with the Minister for Education, Sport and Culture.  The Director of Jersey Heritage is accountable to the Board of Trustees.

Our purpose

Jersey Heritage’s statement of purpose as incorporated in its constitution, is:

Jersey’s heritage and culture is special.  The purpose of the Jersey Heritage Trust is to care for it, promote wide access to it, act as advocates on its behalf and bring imagination to telling its stories so that we inspire people to create a better island for everyone.

Our aims

Everything that Jersey Heritage does is focused on four strategic aims:

Guardianship

Protect Jersey’s archives, collections and historic environment

Discovery

Promote enjoyment of our sites and services to inspire learning about Jersey’s heritage

Community

Give everyone a chance to get involved in caring for Jersey’s heritage

Sustainability

Ensure support and resources to continue our work in the future

Our strategy

Jersey Heritage is moving towards the Heritage Cycle model in conjunction with Government of Jersey’s Heritage Strategy:

Our standards

We are committed to providing Jersey with a first-class museum, archives and heritage service and work to the highest professional standards.  We aim to operate to UK national standards in everything we do and we benchmark ourselves against national standards to give our funders and our audience confidence in the quality of our work.  We currently meet the following standards:

For museums:

The Museums Libraries and Archives Council’s Museum Accreditation Scheme

For visitor services:

Visit Britain’s Visitor Attraction Quality Assurance Scheme;

For archives:

The National Archive’s Accreditation Scheme;

For staff development:

Investors in People standard.

Our visitor sites:

Our visitor sites comprise the Jersey Museum, Maritime Museum, Elizabeth Castle, La Hougue Bie, Hamptonne and Mont Orgueil Castle. They are open throughout the year (Except Elizabeth Castle which is open March – October).

The Jersey Archive is open to the public four days a week (Monday – Thursday) throughout the year and one Saturday morning opening a month when the team deliver a ‘What’s your Street’s Story?’ presentation to the public.

Visitor sites are cared for by our team of Site Gardiens and are staffed by a broader team of Site Gardiens, Visitor Services Assistants, Living History demonstrators and volunteers during the main visitor season.

Curation and Experience:

We hold an exciting array of events, exhibitions and living history demonstrations at each of our sites throughout the year, which aim to bring the past to life by engaging with our visitors.

Every year we meet most of the schools in Jersey and all the sites have curriculum links.

We also carry have an outreach programme to share our stories across the Island.

The strategy and priorities for the Curation and Experience department of JH are set out in the ‘Heritage Connects’ document.

Commercial services:

Income is self-generated through various activities including admissions, venue hire, weddings, retail, catering, fundraising and membership. Many of these activities bring new people to our sites as well as generating revenue and in each case we need to balance optimum value to the public against maximum commercial gain.

We manage a collection of heritage properties and ‘coastal towers’ that are available for hire as self-catering holiday accommodation. Properties include: Radio Tower, Barge Aground, Elizabeth Castle, La Crête Fort, Fort Leicester, L’Etacquerel Fort, Archirondel Tower, Lewis’s Tower, Fisherman’s Cottage, La Tour Cârrée, La Rocco Tower, Seymour Tower and Kempt Tower.

After having previously been outsourced, Jersey Heritage now manages its retail site shops internally with the aim of increasing income as a result of offering more focused products.

We manage the catering facilities at the Castles and Hamptonne, La Hougue Bie and work closely with third party partners to provide catering at Jersey Museum. and.

We operate the Castle Ferries that run between West Park and Elizabeth Castle so that the ferry journey becomes an integral part of the visitor experience.

Other services:

We also work with advisory panels to give stakeholders a voice. Examples include the panels for historic building listing and for access to public archive records. Formal public consultation has become important in areas like the conservation policies for our historic buildings to ensure that our plans have wide public support.

Our heritage partners:

Nearly all Jersey Heritage work is done in partnership with other organisations. Most of the collections and sites in our care are managed on behalf of the Société Jersiaise, the National Trust and the States of Jersey for example. We also work closely with organisations like the Channel Islands Family History Society, the Friends of the Maritime Museum, the Duke’s Leopards and the 1781 Jersey Militia.

Our corporate supporters:

Over 30 local businesses support Jersey Heritage each year as members, project partners or sponsors. Corporate members not only provide financial support, but also people to help with conservation projects.