Fort Charles
The oldest fort at Port Royal, begun in the 1650s, with a maritime museum and Nelson's Quarterdeck.
Fort Charles was the first of the forts built to guard Port Royal, the harbour town at the tip of the Palisadoes spit that became the main English base in the Caribbean. Work began in the late 1650s under the Commonwealth, when it was called Fort Cromwell, and it was renamed after Charles II at the Restoration. Successive rebuildings between 1656 and 1670 thickened the brick and stone walls, and by 1765 the fort mounted about 104 guns with a garrison of some five hundred men.
The fort survived the earthquake of 7 June 1692, which sank much of Port Royal into the harbour, and remained in use into the nineteenth century. A raised timber walkway along the seaward wall is known as Nelson's Quarterdeck, after Horatio Nelson, who commanded the fort in 1779 while waiting for a French invasion fleet. Buildings inside now hold a maritime museum covering the town's naval and buccaneering history, and cannon line the perimeter.
Highlights
- Brick and stone ramparts begun in the 1650s as Fort Cromwell
- Nelson's Quarterdeck, the raised walkway along the sea wall
- Maritime museum on Port Royal's naval and buccaneering past
- Original and replica cannon around the perimeter
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![Théâtre de la guerre dans l'Inde sur la coste de Coromandel / par M.B.C.T. [Monsieur Bourcet Capitaine ?] ; gravé par Croisey](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg/500px-Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg)
