Fort Charlotte
Hilltop fort above Kingstown, completed in 1806, with paintings on Black Carib history.
Fort Charlotte stands on Berkshire Hill, about 180 metres above the sea at the western edge of Kingstown. The British began work on the position in 1763, after taking the island, and the fort was completed and named in 1806 after Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. Unusually for a Caribbean fortification, most of its guns point inland rather than out to sea: the works were laid out against attack from the Kalinago and Garifuna of the interior and from the French.
At its strongest the fort mounted thirty-four guns and quartered six hundred soldiers behind ramparts, a dry ditch and a drawbridge below the citadel gate. After the garrison left, the buildings served in turn as a hospital and a women's prison. The former officers' quarters now hold a sequence of paintings by Lindsay Prescott recounting the history of the Black Caribs, or Garifuna, including the wars of the 1790s and the deportation of survivors to Central America in 1797.
Highlights
- Completed in 1806 and named after Queen Charlotte, wife of George III
- Guns laid out to face inland rather than out to sea
- Paintings by Lindsay Prescott on Black Carib and Garifuna history
- Ramparts with wide views over Kingstown and the Grenadines
![Afrique occidentale française : Cathédrale à St Louis / [photogr. Eugène] Gallois ; [photogr. reprod. par Radiguet et Massiot pour la conférence donnée par] Gallois](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Afrique_occidentale_fran%C3%A7aise_-_Cath%C3%A9drale_%C3%A0_St_Louis_-_%28photogr._Eug%C3%A8ne%29_Gallois_%3B_%28photogr._reprod._par_Radiguet_et_Massiot_pour_la_conf%C3%A9rence_donn%C3%A9e_par%29_Gallois_-_btv1b532798828.jpg/500px-thumbnail.jpg)
![[Golestan, Le Salon et Fete de l'equinode, Teheran, Iran (le Pavillion du Trone)]](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/-Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg/500px--Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg)
![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)
