The windmills
Stone and restored sails.
Paul Harrison — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Paul Harrison — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Paul Harrison — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Paul Harrison — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Dr. Thomas Liptak — CC BY 4.0 · Paul Harrison — CC BY-SA 4.0
Betty's Hope is an old sugar plantation in rural Antigua that is now an open-air museum. It has two cone-shaped stone windmills, one with restored sails, and the ruins of the great house, boiling house and still house, among green fields and low hills. The estate was founded around 1650, soon after the English colonised the island, and was Antigua's first large sugar plantation. Christopher Codrington bought it in 1674 and named it after his daughter, and it stayed in his family until 1944. Its wealth rested on the labour of enslaved people for centuries. Restoration began in 1990, and since 1995 the Museum of Antigua and Barbuda has run it as a historic site. You walk between the two windmills and step into one to see the big red gears that crushed the cane. You see the cisterns, the roofless arches of the still house and the ruins of the great house. The visitor centre explains the estate's history and the lives of those who worked it. The estate is 12 km in a straight line east of St John's and 6.7 km west of Devil's Bridge. One tour operator gives entry at about US$2, around EC$5. The site is exposed, so bring a hat.
Stone and restored sails.
Cane-crushing machinery.
Roofless arches.
South of Pares village, Saint Peter parish, Antigua
Yes, at the visitor centre.
Devil's Bridge is 6.7 km away.