Beyond the Beaches:
Nelson's Dockyard, Devil's Bridge and Barbuda's Communal Land

Most visitors to Antigua and Barbuda see the beaches and stop there. The islands also hold a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a limestone arch shaped by the Atlantic, the ruins of the first big sugar estate and an island next door whose land, unusually, was owned in common.

English Harbour and Nelson's Dockyard

On the south coast, Nelson's Dockyard in English Harbour dates from 1725, when it was a British naval base. It became Nelson's Dockyard National Park in 1984, after independence, under the National Parks Act, and UNESCO inscribed it in 2016 as the Antigua Naval Dockyard and Related Archaeological Sites. Tourism sources call it the only continuously working Georgian dockyard in the world, which is a claim worth repeating with care. What is clear is that it is still a working marina, with yachts, catamarans and superyachts moored beside restored Georgian buildings, and it is one of the island's social hubs in winter.

Shirley Heights

Above the harbour, Shirley Heights is a military lookout where more than 50 structures were built between 1781 and 1825 and troops were housed into the 1850s. It became part of the park in 1984. It is now best known for the Sunday evening barbecue and steel band, and for the view over English and Falmouth Harbours.

Devil's Bridge and the east coast

On the Atlantic coast, Devil's Bridge is a natural limestone arch and blowhole formation carved by waves, and a national park. It reflects the geology of the islands: limestone, not volcanic activity, shaped most of the topography of Antigua and Barbuda, and both are low-lying.

Boggy Peak and Fig Tree Drive

Antigua's highest point is Boggy Peak, at 402 metres (1,319 feet), the remnant of a volcanic crater in the southwest. It was officially renamed Mount Obama between 2008 and 2016. Fig Tree Drive crosses the countryside through villages and fruit plantations, and limestone caves such as Darby's Cave and Two Foot Bay are among the lesser-known stops.

Betty's Hope

Betty's Hope is the site of Antigua's first large-scale sugar plantation, with restored windmills and a small museum. Sugar shaped the islands' economy and population, and the ruins of mills and boiling houses across Antigua trace that history.

Barbuda

Barbuda lies to the north and is a different world: 160 square kilometres, 1,634 residents at the last full count in 2011, and one settlement, Codrington. Codrington Lagoon National Park is one of the largest internal bodies of water in the Lesser Antilles and shelters a large colony of frigatebirds, reached by a short boat ride. Sources describe it variously as the largest colony in the western hemisphere, the Caribbean's largest or one of the world's largest. The pink-sand beaches along the coast are the other draw.

The land question

Barbuda's land has been held in common since emancipation. The Codrington family leased the island from the late seventeenth century, and as absentee landlords they left the islanders to farm and graze communally. The Barbuda Land Act 2007 codified that arrangement, and a Barbuda Council administers the island. In September 2017, Hurricane Irma destroyed more than 90% of Barbuda's buildings and the whole population was evacuated to Antigua. The government then amended the Land Act, arguing that individual freehold would ease reconstruction financing and foreign investment. Barbudans, Human Rights Watch and others objected, and the dispute continues.

What this means for a buyer

Antigua and Barbuda's property market, covered earlier in this series, is mostly Antiguan. Barbuda's tenure is different, historically communal and based on leases, and sources of different dates disagree about what the current law allows. Before buying or leasing anything on Barbuda, including a unit in a development, get a written opinion from an Antigua and Barbuda attorney on the tenure, who grants the lease and what rights the Council retains. The developments article earlier in this series covers the Nobu project on Barbuda.