Fort Regent is a 19th-century fortification and leisure centre on Mont de la Ville (Town Hill), in St. Helier, Jersey.

[1][2] The fort is in close proximity to the fortified South Hill Engineers Barracks at La Collette and overlooks the 16th-century Elizabeth Castle and harbour to the west.

The fort's main features are substantial curtain walls, ditches, a glacis, redoubts, bastions, and redans (or demi-bastions).

[2] The dolmen was gifted to Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway, Governor of Jersey (1772–1795), who removed and brought it to his home in 1788, Park Place, near Henley-on-Thames.

During the Middle Ages, the Town Hill, and the nearby Petit Mont de la Ville, were used as common land.

The Chapel of Notre Dame des Pas was situated at the foot of the hill during this period, but it was demolished by the Board of Ordnance in 1814.

An illustration by J. Heath, dated 1757, shows the first signs of fortification on the Town Hill, in form of lines, possibly earthworks rather than stone walls.

[2] The hill was used in 1781, during the Battle of Jersey, by the 78th Regiment of Foot as a suitable position to prevent the retreat of the invading French Army.

The construction of the fortress we see today on Town Hill began on 7 November 1806, during the Napoleonic Wars, with the laying of a foundation stone by George Don the Lieutenant Governor of Jersey.

The Fort Regent well is believed to be the deepest well-shaft in the island [excluding artesian bores], and is a stunning tribute to the persistence and ingenuity of Georgian military engineers.

When the sappers and miners blasted through to the spring, at a depth of 221 ft below the well-curb in the underground well-head chamber, they did so unexpectedly and water rose rapidly in the shaft.

The major of engineers in charge of the works recorded that "great difficulty was experienced in recovering the men to the surface before they were drowned by the inrush from the Spring".

The construction records, including the commanding officer's daily diary, are now in the National Archives at Kew and were researched by the architect and the main contractor – C.G.

As originally commissioned, water was raised to the surface by an above-ground horse whim or capstan at parade-ground level, but this proved to be both time-consuming and unpopular with the soldiery and lasted for only a year after the official opening in 1814.

During the 1970s reconstruction, the local government's client organisation – the Fort Regent Development Committee (FRDC) ordered that all of the well-shaft access ladders, cast-iron floor-gratings (supplied from Ironbridge by order of the War Office), and pump rods and valves – should be removed from the well-shaft and scrapped,[citation needed] "because the Fort requires the well-water to be used for commercial and domestic supplies within the new leisure complex, and contamination from this old machinery cannot be risked".