The Valley

The Valley grew up at the centre of the island, close to Crocus Hill, the highest ground on otherwise flat Anguilla. According to traditional accounts, English settlers came from St Kitts from 1650, and the slaves brought to the island were forced to work on plantations growing sugar, which replaced tobacco as the main crop. Wallblake House, a planter's house built in 1787 by Will Blake, is the town's oldest surviving building: the French gutted it during a raid in the late 1790s, and the British rebuilt it.

The town has few colonial buildings because the island's administration was moved to St Kitts in 1825. Anguilla was federated with St Kitts and Nevis in 1882 against the wishes of many islanders, and resentment of rule from Basseterre came to a head in 1967, when Anguillians expelled the St Kitts police and, after a second referendum, declared a republic with Ronald Webster as president. Their aim was separation from St Kitts and a return to British rule; after British forces landed in 1969, Anguilla was formally separated as a British territory in 1980, with The Valley as its capital.

Hurricane Irma in September 2017 was the most powerful hurricane to strike the island, causing about USD 320 million of material damage; the damaged infrastructure was repaired in 2018 and 2019, and the economy began to recover in 2019. Earlier storms had left their mark too: Hurricane Luis damaged the island in 1995 and Hurricane Lenny brought severe flooding in 1999. In the town itself, Wallblake House was among ten heritage houses restored over seven years up to 2004.

The Valley's landmarks are mostly its churches and the plantation house. St. Gerard's Catholic Church, finished in 1966 beside Wallblake House, is known for its façade of pebbles, stones, cement, wood and tile; the Catholic congregation met at Wallblake House after a hurricane destroyed its first chapel in 1961. Across the island, Anglicans and Methodists are the largest churches, and church is central to community life.

Boat racing is Anguilla's national sport. Locally built and designed boats race on national holidays, including the Summer Festival, or Carnival, which marks the anniversary of emancipation around August Monday. Lobster Fest and village food festivals fill out the calendar, and Moonsplash, an annual reggae festival, is the island's largest music event alongside Carnival. Soca and calypso are widely played.

Ronald Webster Park in the town is a 4,000-capacity sports ground, used for football, athletics and, in most years, a Leeward Islands regional cricket match. The sprinter Zharnel Hughes, who has competed for Great Britain and England since 2015 and won relay medals at the 2018 and 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 2024 Olympics, was born in The Valley.

About 3,300 people lived in The Valley at the 2011 census, out of roughly 15,750 on the whole island in 2021. It is the island's capital and commercial centre, with the main schools — Valley Primary School, the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School, and Omololu International School, which opened in 1994 as the island's first private school. The airport is on the edge of town.

The island's economy rests on tourism, offshore finance, captive insurance and fishing. Anguilla has no capital gains, sales or corporate taxes, and the boom in artificial intelligence has brought a surge in fees for its ".ai" internet domain. Much of its produce is imported, and the government aims to draw part of its electricity from solar power to cut its dependence on imported diesel.

Life is car-dependent and unhurried. People drive between the town and the villages around it — North Side, The Quarter, North Hill and George Hill — and remittances from Anguillians abroad help support the island.

Anguillian cooking draws on native Caribbean, West African, Spanish, French and English traditions, and the sea supplies much of it: spiny lobster, crab, conch, shrimp, mahi-mahi, red snapper and grouper. Salt cod is a staple, eaten on its own or in stews, casseroles and soups, and goat is the most commonly eaten meat. The official national food is pigeon peas and rice, and yams, sweet potatoes and breadfruit are among the starchy staples. Common dishes include callaloo, a stew of callaloo greens, fritters made with conch or coconut, dumplings, and soups and bisques of lobster, conch and fish.

Rice is imported, and other starches are imported or grown locally. In town, bakeries and small local restaurants feed office workers, while the beach bars and barbecues of Sandy Ground and Shoal Bay serve grilled food and rum punch, some with live bands. Lobster Fest and food festivals such as Festival del Mar at Easter and the Anguilla Culinary Experience in May celebrate the island's cooking.