The UK-St Helena Heritage Trust

The UK-St Helena Heritage Trust is a UK-registered charity that exists to preserve and promote the built and cultural heritage of St Helena. This beautiful, tiny island in the South Atlantic is a UK Overseas Territory and its people – ‘Saints’ – are British nationals with the right to hold a British passport and to reside in Britain. They have a unique culture, derived from 500 years’ presence of European sailors and settlers, enslaved and liberated Africans, and servants and bonded labourers from Asia. They are few in number (under 4,500) and are geographically isolated – the nearest land mass is southern Africa, over 1,200 miles to the east. 

But size is no indicator of importance. Saints are the inheritors and custodians of a history of global significance, encompassing the European conquest of the Americas and the rise and suppression of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the empire building of the English East India Company, early modern Europe’s global maritime wars and rivalries, and, especially, the Napoleonic Wars and the lonely exile and death of the Emperor Napoleon on the island. This sprawling, battle-scarred history has left a substantial legacy of fortifications and batteries, colonial mansions, slavery sites and old burial grounds, much of which is under threat from weather, poor repairs and lack of resource. The islanders need funding support to preserve and interpret this heritage, both as their birthright and to develop sustainable tourism, which is crucial to improving St Helena’s economy and employment opportunities. 

Please donate to help us help St Helena save its fabulous heritage sites. 

Thank you for your support.

The accommodation block at Munden's Battery, January 2026. The block was home to three Bahraini political prisoners in the late 1950s. Napoleon was not St Helena's only exile!