SIGHTSEEING AROUND ANTIGUA | Nelson's Dockyard | Betty's Hope | Shirley Heights

NELSON'S DOCKYARD

Driving the southern route of the island to English Harbour is picturesque and Nelson’s Dockyard is worth the trip.

An aerial view of English Harbour in Antigua with Nelson's Dockyard center left

If you decide to visit Nelson's Dockyard, also see Shirley Heights, Dows Hill Interpretation Centre and the Blockhouse (the last three are perched high on hills and have some very great views). Everything is quite close and most taxi drivers would be glad to take you to all for a reasonable rate. Dockyard Hours: 9am - 5 pm. You pay a single $7 admission fee that lets you into ALL the sites - so save your ticket.

Nelson's Dockyard is a 15-square-mile national park which includes the historic dockyard dating back from 1745. It is Antigua's most popular attraction. In the great age of sail, the harbour served as the headquarters of the fleet of the Leeward Islands during the turbulent years of the late 18th century. Abandoned in 1889, it languished until the 1950s, when its resurrection and restoration began. Today the handsome buildings have been converted into inns, gift shops, a market, restaurants, an art centre and a nautical museum which explains the 20th century return of sailing ships. Nelson's Dockyard has been completely restored, and it is now the only Georgian dockyard in the world.

ENGLISH HARBOUR

English Harbour, Antigua's graceful and evocative historic district, was developed nearby as a base for the British Navy.

Great photograph of English Harbour and Nelson's Dockyard through the trees from the coastal path leading up to the Shirley Heights lookout. In the background a small section of Falmouth Harbour can be seen and in the foreground Galleon Beach

Almost all of the park's other sites of interest overlook the harbour. The closest of these is Clarence House, a residence built for the future King William IV (1765-1837) when he served under Nelson as captain of the H.M.S. Pegasus.

SHIRLEY HEIGHTS

Further above the harbor, at Shirley Heights, are the ruins of the former lookout fort of the Royal Navy. The view from Shirley Heights extends out over the harbor and far across the Caribbean to Montserrat and Guadeloupe. Every Sunday night, tourists and locals celebrate day's end with a huge, sunset party at this historic fort atop English Harbour-- enhanced by a barbeque and live music (Steel Band music from 3-6 pm & reggae from 6-9). This area of old gun platforms and military buildings is best known today for the absolutely breathtaking view that it offers. The site is named for General Shirley, Governor of the Leeward Islands when the area was fortified in the late eighteenth century. Close by is the cemetery, in which stands an obelisk erected in honor of the soldiers of the 54th regiment.

Shirley Heights can be reached via Lookout Trail, a nature walk that rises from the harbor through a forest of trees beginning at the Galleon Hotel. Or, you can hire a taxi to take you up the hill to Shirley Heights, where you can have lunch while taking in the most spectacular vista in Antigua -- a panoramic view of English and Falmouth Harbors. Steel drum bands play on Thursdays and Sundays. While the walk up is fairly easy and takes less than an hour --descending the trail is not advisable after dark or during barbecue revelry.

DOW'S HILL INTERPRETATION CENTER

Along Lookout Trail and near Shirley Heights, and about 2-1/2 miles southeast of the Dockyard, is Dow's Hill Interpretation Center, where visitors can watch an impressive multimedia presentation of Antigua's history, from its initial settlement to independence. Observation decks at Dow's Hill provide another fine view of the harbor, as do the ruined fortifications of Fort Berkeley, located on the far side of the bay and reached by a walk around its perimeter. All of these points, as well as the park's convenient beaches, become especially popular spectator positions during Sailing Week.

ANTIGUA'S HISTORY AND CULTURE

SEA VIEW FARM VILLAGE

Sea View Farm Village is in the middle of the island. Antiguan folk pottery dates back at least to the early 18th century, when slaves fashioned cooking vessels from local clay. Today, folk pottery is fashioned in a number of places around Antigua, but the center of this cottage industry is Sea View Farm Village. The clay is collected from pits located nearby, and the wares are fired in an open fire under layers of green grass in the yards of the potters' houses. Folk pottery can be purchased at outlets in the village as well as at a number of stores around the island. Buyers should be aware that Antiguan folk pottery breaks rather easily in cold environments.

BETTY'S HOPE SUGAR PLANTATION

It would be difficult to overestimate the impact on Antigua's history of the arrival, one fateful day in 1684, of Sir Christopher Codrington. An enterprising man, Codrington had come to Antigua to find out if the island would support the sort of large-scale sugar cultivation that already flourished elsewhere in the Caribbean. His initial efforts proved to be quite successful, and over the next fifty years sugar cultivation on Antigua exploded. By the middle of the 18th century the island was dotted with more than 150 cane-processing windmills--each the focal point of a sizeable plantation. Today almost 100 of these picturesque stone towers remain, although they now serve as houses, bars, restaurants and shops.

At Betty's Hope, Codrington's original sugar estate, visitors can see a fully-restored sugar mill. You will see the areas once occupied by the "African Village" and various outbuildings used as workshops for the Slave and indentured artisans so important to the operation of a plantation. Most Antiguans are of African lineage, descendants of slaves brought to the island centuries ago to labor in the sugarcane fields. However, during William's reign, in 1834, Britain abolished slavery in the empire. Alone among the British Caribbean colonies, Antigua instituted immediate full emancipation rather than a four-year 'apprenticeship,' or waiting period. Today, Antigua's Carnival festivities commemorate the earliest abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean.

Emancipation actually improved the island's economy, but the sugar industry of the British islands was already beginning to wane. Until the development of tourism in the past few decades,

RUTH'S PLACE

Antiguans struggled for prosperity until tourism took hold.