St Kitts
Early morning showers and attendant rainbows at first light quickly cleared as we came alongside at Basseterre, the largest township on St Kitts, an island community of some forty thousand souls that was under British rule for two centuries before gaining its independence in 1967. Like many Caribbean islands, it was named by the Spanish, in this case by Christopher Columbus himself who first sighted the island in the course of his second expedition in 1493 and named it after his own patron saint, St Christopher. It is known in English by the more familiar form, St Kitts. St Kitts can claim to be the oldest English settlement in the Americas, established as by Sir Thomas Warner in 1623. We passed his tomb in the grounds of the Anglican cathedral.
Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park is an enormous complex of military installations overlooking the sea dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Built to defend from French colonial rivals, the fortress speaks volumes about the economic importance of the sugar plantations to Britain. The wealth from sugar and slaves was pivotal in enabling the rapid technical developments of the Industrial Revolution to proceed, providing the venture capital and risk insurance accessed by many of the first wave of industrial entrepreneurs. At the site of the former Wingfield Sugar Mill we were able to inspect the impressive remains of one of the longest-operating industrial sites in the Caribbean with a continuous history of production dating from the seventeenth century to 1911. The mill was powered by an impressive aqueduct bringing water to an overshot wheel that powered the cane-crushing machinery. Next to the mill house were the remains of the copper boilers used to produce sugar ready for export. The surviving structures date from around 1700. Using a recently discovered estate map of 1682, it has been possible to locate the foundations of Thomas Warner's original residence nearby and it is hoped that an archaeological sequence at this site will enable historians to document the full history of a plantation economy over nearly four centuries.
The nearby planter's house now houses a superb batik studio where local craftsmen and women produce high quality garments that attracted both our eyes and our purses. The botanic gardens proved a wonderful place to stroll and savor the romance of the Caribbean before returning to Sea Cloud II for an afternoon under sail.
Early morning showers and attendant rainbows at first light quickly cleared as we came alongside at Basseterre, the largest township on St Kitts, an island community of some forty thousand souls that was under British rule for two centuries before gaining its independence in 1967. Like many Caribbean islands, it was named by the Spanish, in this case by Christopher Columbus himself who first sighted the island in the course of his second expedition in 1493 and named it after his own patron saint, St Christopher. It is known in English by the more familiar form, St Kitts. St Kitts can claim to be the oldest English settlement in the Americas, established as by Sir Thomas Warner in 1623. We passed his tomb in the grounds of the Anglican cathedral.
Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park is an enormous complex of military installations overlooking the sea dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Built to defend from French colonial rivals, the fortress speaks volumes about the economic importance of the sugar plantations to Britain. The wealth from sugar and slaves was pivotal in enabling the rapid technical developments of the Industrial Revolution to proceed, providing the venture capital and risk insurance accessed by many of the first wave of industrial entrepreneurs. At the site of the former Wingfield Sugar Mill we were able to inspect the impressive remains of one of the longest-operating industrial sites in the Caribbean with a continuous history of production dating from the seventeenth century to 1911. The mill was powered by an impressive aqueduct bringing water to an overshot wheel that powered the cane-crushing machinery. Next to the mill house were the remains of the copper boilers used to produce sugar ready for export. The surviving structures date from around 1700. Using a recently discovered estate map of 1682, it has been possible to locate the foundations of Thomas Warner's original residence nearby and it is hoped that an archaeological sequence at this site will enable historians to document the full history of a plantation economy over nearly four centuries.
The nearby planter's house now houses a superb batik studio where local craftsmen and women produce high quality garments that attracted both our eyes and our purses. The botanic gardens proved a wonderful place to stroll and savor the romance of the Caribbean before returning to Sea Cloud II for an afternoon under sail.
