Blue Hill is one of eight

districts A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions ...

of the island of

Saint Helena Saint Helena (, ) is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km ...

, part of the

British Overseas Territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory located in the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and consisting of the island of Saint Helena, Ascension Island, and the archipelago of Tri ...

in the South

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. It is sparsely populated and comprises the western third of the island. The district is entirely agricultural with no industrial activity.

Description

Terrain in the district is quite varied with steep ridges and a limited amount of flat ground, as befits the island's volcanic origin. Blue Hill's main settlement, with the location of the community centre, is Blue Hill Village. The district also includes the settlements of Barren Ground, Head o' Wain, and Thompson's Wood, together with a few scattered

cottage A cottage, during Feudalism in England, England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager (known as a cotter or ''bordar'') of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager had to provide ...

s. The only school in Blue Hill closed in 1990, only two years after it had opened, but there is a Baptist Chapel at Head o'Wain and an

Anglican Church Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

, St. Helena & The Cross, just next to The Depot, a small hill on the ridge that separates Blue Hill from Sandy Bay. Planning permission was received to build a

resort A resort (North American English) is a self-contained commercial establishment that aims to provide most of a vacationer's needs. This includes food, drink, swimming, accommodation, sports, entertainment and shopping, on the premises. A hotel ...

at Broad Bottom in November 2015, but construction has yet to begin as of November 2016. Blue Hill is the largest, most remote, most rural, least populated and least densely populated of the eight districts of Saint Helena. Its population has fluctuated from 177 in 1998 to 153 in 2008 and 174 in 2021.

History

Troops of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

landed at Swanley Valley on 20 December 1672 and were guided inland by an English traitor. They defeated the garrison of High Peak Fort and briefly occupied the rest of the island until the English recaptured it in May 1673. During the Boer War, the British transported over 5,000 Boer prisoners of war to St Helena between 1900 and 1902. After problems developed between prisoners from the

Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name ''Transvaal''. * South African Republic (1856–1902; ...

and the

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( ; ) was an independent Boer-ruled sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Em ...

, the British transferred the Free Staters to a new camp in Broad Bottom in early 1901. They were repatriated at the end of the war in late 1902. In 2011 a facetious proposal was published in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' (and reproduced in the ''St Helena Independent'') that Blue Hill be made into a "retirement village for exiled dictators", citing its isolation and small existing population.

Notes

Bibliography

External links

* {{Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Districts of Saint Helena Populated places in Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Second Boer War concentration camps es:Cerro Azul