History & culture | Museums | Monuments

The nations of the Caribbean are proud of their history and have gone to great lengths to protect the most treasured monuments of their multi-cultural heritage. 

Nelson's Dockyard national park is at the centre of English Harbour in Antigua. Developed as a base for the British Navy in the age of sail, it was abandoned and closed in 1889. Today, it has been restored as the only Georgian dockyard in the world. Overlooking the harbour is Clarence House, a residence built for Britain’s future King William IV when he served under Lord Nelson as captain of the HMS Pegasus. 

The immense fortress of Brimstone Hill on St Kitts stood as the Gibraltar of the West Indies. Recently, the Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park (www.brimstonehillfortress.org) was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site of historical, cultural and architectural significance: a monument to the ingenuity of the British military engineers who designed it and to the skill, strength and endurance of the African slaves who built and maintained it. On neighboring Nevis, young Horatio Nelson, still known today as Britian’s greatest naval hero, courted and married Fanny Nisbet. The island still bears traces of the young captain's presence. 

St Vincent's Botanic Gardens, the oldest in the western hemisphere, was where Captain Bligh introduced the breadfruit tree from Tahiti to provide food for slaves. 

Martinique is at the heart of the French Caribbean. Just across the bay from the capital, Fort-de-France, the Musée de la Pagerie recounts the adventures of Napoleon's Empress Josephine, who was born there. 

The Dutch have left a lasting mark on a number of islands, notably Curaçao, with exquisite 17th and 18th Century Dutch colonial buildings. Fans of 16th and 17th century Spanish colonial architecture should visit the old walled city of San Juan in Puerto Rico. 

Other imposing sights include the great mansions of Jamaica, each with its own haunting tale, and Pedro St James in Grand Cayman, an early 19th century great house, restored at a cost of $7.5 million, while Cuba contains a treasury of period buildings, from entire colonial cities to mid-20th Century modern. 

Indeed, all our countries have monuments to the cultures that have influenced them. From Mayan and Carib ruins to astonishing modern architecture, the remembrance in our physical structures of Caribbean times past and present will leave you with memories that last forever.