In 2016, Antigua’s historic Nelson’s Dockyard was granted Unesco World Heritage status - adding it to a list of incomparable landmarks, geological wonders and striking mementoes of past.
When UNESCO announces new additions to its World Heritage list, the world takes notice - clambering for details of the architectural,ancient, priceless, worthy or obscure that has made the grade. Antigua’s historic Naval Dockyard is deserving of the UNESCO rubber-stamp as a fine example of Britain’s colonial expansion into the Caribbean’s warm azure waters. The Antigua Naval Dockyard and Related Archaeological Sites are late 18th, early 19th century defensive structures designed by the British Navy and built using labour of generations of enslaved Africans since the end of the 18th century - a dark echo of the past which UNESCO is, quite rightly, keen to acknowledge.The dockyard sits in a natural setting, around a series of bays known as the English Harbour and is generally known by its unofficial name “Nelson’s Dockyard”. The doomed hero of the Battle of Trafalgar was basedat the wharf side between 1784 and 1787 and famously loathed every second. “I hate the sight of it,” he moaned in 1784 – perhaps because the local mosquitoes seemed to have collectively plagued him without respite.
Strategically positioned midway along Antigua’s south coast, the dockyard benefits from the sheltered waves - a characteristic that has earned the dockyard popularity in the 21st century with yachts and their crews.English Bay is a safe haven for super yachts, sailing craft and moorings having changed little since its days of Nelson. After being abandoned by the navy in 1889, restoration began in 1951 and the wharf side is now filled with upscale eating, dining and shopping options. Elegant restored colonial buildings and an old Inn lend this nautical hotspot a whimsical charm, it is hard to imagine how the Western Hemisphere's only working Georgian dockyard ever deserved Nelson’sdescription as a "vile hole” in two centuries past. Today, it is home to several of the globe's most prestigious regattas and is a lynchpin of Eastern Caribbean country's tourism. UNESCO’s award to the dockyard ensures it is recognised worldwide as being of outstanding importance, head to head with the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon and the Pyramids of Giza.
