Fort Berkeley and the RN Tot Club English Harbour Antigua

Hotels and bars overlooking the hurricane hole

First thing on Friday 30^thMarch we took the dinghy out for a shopping trip. There’s a pretty good supermarket, ‘Covent Garden’, at the top end of English Harbour, up in the hurricane hole. Catering to its market it has a decent dinghy dock outside it and a wide variety of goods inside.

The Pillars Hotel in Nelson’s Dockyard

On the way we passed The Pillars Hotel, part of the Nelson’s Dockyard National Park. The area surrounded by the pillars was formerly part of the sail loft. Now it is a beach for the exclusive use of hotel guests and on some days weddings are held here – quite a venue.

Back on BV the weather was glorious. Charlotte wanted to stay on board to do some serious sunbathing whilst Nicky and I wanted to stretch our legs.

Fort Berkeley on the northern side of the entrance to English Harbour

Out to our left was Fort Berkley and we had read about a trail that runs from the dockyard to the fort and then around the peninsula to Falmouth Harbour. We decided that we could just fit that in before we had to go ashore for an appointment. So, leaving Charlotte on BV we set off.

We found the start of the trail on the slope just up from the dockyard. A sign explained that this is another path maintained by the RN Tot Club.

Fort Berkeley.  The nearest building was the powder magazine and just to its left you can see the edge of the steps that run up to it from the water’s edge, via which gunpowder was supplied to the magazine

In its heyday, Fort Berkeley’s guns
dominated the approaches to English Harbour

After a short distance we were out on Fort Berkley. Once, numerous gun positions dominated the approaches to the harbour. Gunpowder and ammunition was supplied to the fort by lighter direct from the powder store (on the opposite side of the inlet to the old sail loft). Steps built into the shoreline run up from the water to the powder store making delivery by this means far easier than by land. Now the battery provides a great vantage point from which to enjoy the views around and out of the harbour.

We started up the path that runs around and across the Middle Ground, the headland between English and Falmouth Harbours. The views over Nelson’s Dockyard from part way up the ridgeline were excellent. The walk across Middle Ground was great fun and a bit of an interesting scramble in places. We saw plenty of remains from the dockyard era as well as a number of lizards and lots of catci and acacia.

Views out over Falmouth Harbour

Once across the top of Middle Ground we enjoyed some great views out across Falmouth Harbour. It's a much larger harbour than English Harbour and the small yacht anchorage therefore has a much great fetch. However, the lower hills around Falmouth presumably means that the wind in the anchorage is steadier in direction and, in any case, there is more space in which to anchor. It was certainly worthwhile seeing the anchorage to file away for the future – next time there may not be space for us in Freeman Bay.

The Royal Navy Tot Club meeting in the Copper and Lumber Hotel

We walked back to the dinghy the fast way, along the road, in a bit of a rush as John and Suzie Blair had offered to introduce us at the RN Tot Club that evening. The RN Tot Club is a bit of an Antiguan institution. Members have all been introduced at the club 7 times (it meets most days of the week at a variety of locations) and, on their final introduction night, have successfully answered a number of questions on the history of the Royal Navy, and on Nelson in particular, and can correctly give the 7 daily naval toasts [Ed: of which the most well-known is ‘Wives and Sweethearts; may they never meet’ (Saturday, I think)]. On Fridays the Tot Club meets at the Copper and Lumber in the impressive arched courtyard in the centre of the building. John introduced us to a number of the other members, we were formally introduced to the club, along with several other guests and then there was the toast with, of course, a generous tot of Pusser’s finest. Afterwards, we stayed and chatted with John and Suzie and several of the other Tot Club members, many of whom are ex-Servicemen and most of whom are yachties, so we had plenty in common to discuss. All too soon it was, again, much later than we had planned but it was a fitting final evening for us in historic English Harbour.

English Harbour Antigua