English Harbour - Antigua

The following is taken from a message posted to the Admiral Nelson and his Navy discussion group by England Expects, used with permission.

A recent map showing the marina - compared with a map from Nelson's time.
After that the text of an article from Volume 11 of Mariner's Mirror (early 1900's) - makes interesting reading,

a - Berkeley Fort
b - The new line of twelve guns
c - A line for small arms, and communication between the batteries
d - A new battery of ten guns
e - The new yard and storehouse
f - The cisterns
g - The hulk
h - The careening wharf
i - The capstan house
k - The three gun battery
m - The horshoe battery of eleven guns
n - A line for small arms
o - The signal house
p - The boom across the harbour mouth
q - Part of Falmouth Harbour
r - Monks Hill fort

THE OLD DOCKYARD at ENGLISH HARBOUR, ANTIGUA
One of the consequences of the maintenance of the large armed forces required for the establishment and preservation of the Empire is that the face of the earth becomes littered with various naval and military relics, of which, as is only natural, the West Indies seem to possess a particularly ample store. To anyone seeking a more intimate acquaintance with the ships and men of the Royal Navy of the past two hundred and fifty years than is afforded by the accounts of the large fleet actions a leisurely visit to the West Indies offers opportunities hardly equalled elsewhere upon the globe. But ample leisure is a sine qua non. Cruising among the islands in the navy of the present day unfortunately only serves to whet the appetite. Visits are rarely of more than three or four days' duration and are mainly occupied with entertainments of an official character. Furthermore the sites of the ancient centres of naval activity are generally many miles from the harbours now in use and several of the few daylight hours available have to be wasted in transport.

During two years I have been to Antigua three times. The second and third visits were each of less than ten hours and so were of no use. The first was about three days, but included Empire Day, which of course is a public holiday throughout the British West Indies and so a dies non. By good fortune, however, a visit to English Harbour was fitted in before our ship left.

In the case of nearly all the islands of the Lesser Antilles the harbours consist merely of the sheltered anchorage offered by the lee side of the island from the trade wind and swell which prevail throughout the year. From hurricanes and from winds from abnormal directions there is as a rule no shelter whatever. Antigua is however an exception. Almost the whole of its coast is deeply indented. The harbour at present in use is St Johns at the north-west corner of the island, but the old Naval Dockyard was built in English Harbour some eighteen or more miles away at the eastern end of the south side, in a position of considerable strategical advantage as, being to windward of almost the whole of the other islands, our fleet could be refitted in the peaceful seclusion of a landlocked harbour heavily defended by land fortifications. The remarkable protection from hurricanes afforded by the high hills immediately surrounding it was perhaps an even greater point in it! favour. So early as 1672 Sir Charles Wheeler, then Governor of Antigua, recommended that if the narrow neck separating English Harbour from Falmouth Harbour were cut through a really large harbour secure against hurricanes could be made. The disadvantage of English Harbour alone of course is that it is very small.

It was not, however, until 1726 that the work of building the dockyard was begun. The first operations were apparently upon the eastern side between Hart Point and Commissioners Bay. It is perhaps worth mentioning that during the nineteenth century this part of the dockyard came to be known as St Helena. In 1733 some water tanks were authorised to be built and in 1743 the wharves and buildings on the western side of the harbour were commenced. It is this part which remains in the best state of preservation. In 1889 the dockyard was finally abandoned by the Admiralty and since then the place has been falling more and more into decay. It is visited now only by picnic parties and folks on holiday. What happened to the records of the yard when it was closed down I do not know. Someone told me recently that many files of interesting letters affecting the internal economy of ships, etc., were in the possession of a native caretaker twenty or more years ago; as it is not improbable that these included letters of Nelson and other famous admirals one may not unreasonably expect that autograph hunters will have been busy. I may say that I was not a little surprised at the complete ignorance of the history of the place displayed by everyone I met in Antigua. Had I had leisure, though, I dare say I could have discovered something in the records of the local government. It is inconceivable that a dockyard which endured for a hundred and fifty years, which was supported by a large military garrison with fortifications, etc., and which must have been the source of good money spent in the island can have existed without much being recorded in the archives of the colony.
The first view I had of the Dockyard was from Clarence House, on a small hill a bare hundred yards to the northward of Commissioners Bay. This house was built about 1785 to accommodate H.R.H. Prince William Henry when he was on the station in command of the Pegasus, 28 guns. Afterwards the house was used as the residence of the Admiral Commanding and now it has become a holiday place for the Governor. In fact the occasion of my visit was a luncheon party given to naval officers by the Acting Governor and members of the Antigua Volunteer Defence Force. After lunch we descended to a small jetty below the house and paddled across to the Dockyard in the caretaker's boat.

Viewing the harbour from Clarence House one cannot but marvel at the small size of the place and wonder where the ships were moored in the old days; for instance, the twenty-two vessels that sailed from Antigua under Hood to outmanoeuvre De Grasse at St Kitts. Down in the Dockyard it is on the other hand easy to appreciate the extraordinary security of the place. It is so completely landlocked that one seems to be in the deep crater of an immense volcano with the hills forming the crater lip towering all round. Everywhere a dense scrub has grown up to hide the masonry of ruined fortifications, barracks and houses. But sufficient remains for one to see that each hilltop had its battery and with Forts Barclay and Charlotte on either side of the entrance no cutting out expedition could ever have had any chance of success, while the natural features of the place would prevent any but the most exceptional of hurricanes from causing much damage to the ships in harbour. In spite of a healthy trade wind with its attendant swell outside the entrance less than half a mile away not a ripple disturbed the deep blue mirror of the harbour. The oldest part of the Dockyard (that built upon the eastern shore of the harbour) appears to have fallen most into decay, in fact there is practically nothing recognisable from the western shore. It would seem though that the biggest ships must have lain there, as it has the deepest water alongside its wharves ( 19 to 21 feet). In the fairly common print of English Harbour (" A view of English Harbour, Antigua, in the year 1800," afte the drawing by Mr Pocock from a sketch by Captain Walte Tremenheere), I imagine that the two tall-masted ships in th distance are alongside this eastern part of the Dockyard. The drawing was obviously made from a point at the head of Tan Bay, where presumably the men in the boat have come with their barrels to draw water. The Dockyard flagstaff appears to be mounted in the large circular stone foundation alongside of which is now to be found "Camelford's Anchor."

With the constant easterly wind blowing outside ships would have stood up from the south making as close as possible to Charlotte Point and then luffed to try to shoot round it, but as they did so they would come into the windless area and further progress would have to be by warping or sweeps. Both sides of the harbour have many bollards and warping anchors. Ships in the state of most complete readiness for sea wou1d presumably anchor in Freeman Bay, though there is little room there to swing and if they moored head and stern it would not leave much room for other ships warping in. Other vessels would secure to the wharves of the Dockyard. Two or perhaps more might moor head and stern in Commissioners Bay, where they would be close to Pitch Kettle Point, a name which indicates the work carried on there. Ships empty of stores and ballast might go into Ordnance Bay and Tank Bay, but thewater is shallow in both of these. There is hardly any rise and! fall of tide, only about two feet, and that irregular. The modern chart does not mark a careenage, but it is well known of course that the ships careened somewhere in the harbour and there were proper quarters provided in the dockyard for the accommodation of officers and men at such times. The fever death roll among both naval and military personnel was enormous and the graveyards are a melancholy witness. The letters of Nelson to Mrs Nisbet, in the island of Nevis, about forty miles away, make frequent reference to the mosquitoes; in fact every naval officer who ever went near the place seems to have detested it heartily and stated as much in his correspondence.

There is nothing now to show the purposes to which the various buildings were put. The native caretaker knows nothing and fortunately has not the intelligence to invent any tales for tourists. Most of the storehouses are two storeys high. One of them was divided on one floor into rooms about 12 feet by 12 feet and in the same building was a long narrow room that might possibly have been an officers' mess. One of the storehouses still has indication of many crossbeams from which the men's hammocks may possibly have been slung. In another are signs of wooden bins and racks where hawsers, ropes and sails may have been stowed with free circulation of air. I could not find the shipwrights' workshops. The Dockyard clock (an elegant bronze sundial) is much in evidence, standing in a fine clear space upon the wharf and the capstan house was quite worth visiting, though the light inside was too poor for a photograph of the giant hand-capstans to be successful. There is much litter of anchors, pitch cauldrons, barrel staves and all sorts of strangely shaped iron and woodwork. All around the harbour are ruins of various buildings, storehouses, stone tanks and such things. Almost the only living things are the landcrabs, who click, click, click across the hard surface of the Dockyard, scuttling away at human approach. Yet instead of filling one with depression the atmosphere of the place rather enkindled a most enthusiastic imagination.

The most remarkable thing in the whole harbour is a series of big stone columns, about fourteen or fifteen feet high, about three feet minimum diameter and shaped rather like pepper pots. They run back in two lines of eight columns each from the water's edge on the wharf nearest to Tank Bay. At the inshore end two more columns make a traverse joining . these lines. Three of the columns are connected by rusty iron- work and there were signs that the remainder may have been similarly connected. The tops of the columns were rounded and there was no sign that they had ever been used as supports for a roof. Their stature too rather discountenanced such an idea. A picture postcard styles the place " Shipbuilding Quarters." From the appearance of the ground it seems that the area bounded by the lines of the columns had at one time been excavated. One-third of the area was still full of water and appeared to have been most recently used as a boat camber, with the walls forming its sides constructed of big stone block and having one or two archways in them. The remainder of the area appeared to have been filled in with loose rubble to the height of the surface of the wharf.
We left the Dockyard in motor cars and about two hundred yards after leaving the gateway, built in most massive style passed on our left half a dozen small squarely built houses. The chart calls them "Labourers' Cottages"; that may be the case now, though they looked too ruined even for peasants to inhabit, but I prefer to think that years ago they formed "Harmony Row," where the master rigger and the other Dockyard officials lived. The road turns to the right at this point and passes over the low and marshy neck of land barely two hundred yards wide which separates Tank Bay from Falmouth Harbour. Governor Wheeler was not the only man to see the advantage of cutting through this neck; Nelson too recommended it, but equally fruitlessly.

In this paper I have only tried to give the impression that remains after a two-hour visit to this old naval relic and I do not suppose I saw a tenth part of what is to be found in the scrub-covered area bounded by the hills and fortifications. I am sure that a week could be spent there very profitably, but to obtain the best results it would be well first to dig out something of the history of the place from Public Record Office files and study the old charts. My photographs have unfortunately not proved very successful, but if anyone wish to obtain pictures of the place there is a professional photographer named Jose Anjo at St Johns, Antigua, who has published quite a good series of picture postcards of the place.

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Page last updated : 10 January 2010