Heritage jewels of the Caribbean

Immerse yourself in the rich culture, history and traditions that permeate the Caribbean’s winding streets and eye-catching architecture. Here’s our guide to the wide array of heritage sites and cities that await beyond the beaches

- Nigel Tisdall

History lies strewn across the Caribbean like fallen coconuts. In Antigua, for example, there is a favourite spot in English Harbour where islanders like to wash their cars. It is a merry scene of music, banter and auto-worship, and the cleaners fill their buckets from a huge water catchment built in the 1740s by the Royal Navy – and still going strong. Look beyond the foam and sponges and there is a wealth of graffiti carved in the plaster by bored sailors. ‘Hacklet, belonging to his majesty’s ship Tavistock 1751’ reads one, while John Webb and Nat Russel from Anglesey felt moved to leave marks to show they visited this beach-fringed island 281 years ago.

Such casual finds are typical of the way the traveller discovers those who once lived here in the Caribbean, from the indigenous Taíno to the dark days of the slave trade. Having spent more than 20 years exploring this region, I’ve grown used to spotting cannon being used as fenceposts and sugar mills ingeniously repurposed as homes, hotel suites, dining rooms and museums – or, even, also on Antigua, as a police training academy.

While I love the sunshine, beaches and rum here as much as anyone, it’s frustrating how that fly-and-flop image masks a formidable heritage. UNESCO recognised this wealth as early as 1982, when Old Havana was one of the first places to be granted World Heritage status. Today there are 21 UNESCO sites across the islands alone, ranging from the colonial architecture of Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic’s capital, to the colossal but barely-visited Brimstone Hill Fortress on St Kitts.