St Helena launches new interpretive walking trail St Helena launches new interpretive walking trail

Stories of the figures who have visited St Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean over the past 500 years are being brought to life through a new interpretative installation in the heart of the island’s capital, Jamestown.

‘A Walk Through History’ features an initial 28 plaques commemorating internationally significant figures who have visited St Helena since its discovery in 1502 by the Portuguese. Set along the historic Castle Terrace wall, the plaques tell their stories chronologically, revealing this remote volcanic island’s far-reaching global connections, despite being roughly 1,200 miles west of the African coast.

The interactive trail has been developed as part of the UK Government-funded Tourism Development Programme.

Among those featured are Napoleon Bonaparte; King Dinuzulu, who was exiled to St Helena by the British; along with Jonathan the tortoise, a current island resident and Guinness World Records title holder as the world’s oldest living land animal at around 194 years old.

Queen Elizabeth II, who visited the island in 1947 as Princess Elizabeth, along with her parents King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, also feature, reminding visitors that St Helena is one of Britain’s oldest remaining overseas territories.

The project also includes improvements to the nearby Dolphin Stone Garden, home to a stone inscribed in 1645 by the crew of the British ship Dolphin. Sailors once left letters beneath the stone or at the island chapel for passing vessels to collect and deliver, long before St Helena’s first official Post Office opened in 1815.

Although remote, St Helena has played a role in world history for centuries. After the Portuguese landed in 1502, it became a key port on major sea routes and has links to the East India Company, military and maritime history, and, most famously, Napoleon, who was exiled there in 1815 and died on the island in 1821.

Jonathan Passaportis, Head of Tourism for St Helena, said, “St Helena is known around the world as the place of Napoleon’s final exile, but that is only one chapter in an extraordinary story stretching back more than 500 years. A Walk Through History gives visitors a new way to uncover some of the people and stories that connect this small island in the South Atlantic with the wider world.”