Betty's Hope

Betty's Hope is the most evocative reminder of Antigua's sugar past. Founded in the 1650s and acquired by Sir Christopher Codrington in 1674, who named it after his daughter, it became the island's first large-scale sugar plantation. The Codrington family held the estate from 1674 until 1944, and for much of that time enslaved Africans laboured here under brutal conditions to grow and process the cane that made the island rich.

The estate sits in the central interior just south of the village of Pares, an easy detour on the way to or from Long Bay and the east coast. Its signature feature is a pair of stone windmill towers, the twin mills that once crushed cane (a plaque dates the windmill works to 1737). One has been fully restored with its sails and timber machinery rebuilt, the only working sugar-mill of its kind in the Caribbean, while the other stands as a weathered ruin nearby.

A small visitor centre interprets the site, drawing on the Codrington family papers, one of the most complete plantation archives anywhere, to tell the story of sugar, slavery, and emancipation in Antigua. Foundations of the boiling house, cistern, and great house are scattered across the grounds, and information boards walk you through how raw cane became exported sugar.

Betty's Hope is open-air and free to wander, with the visitor centre staffed on weekdays. Pair it with the dramatic blowholes at Devil's Bridge, a short drive further east, for a half day of east-coast history and coastline. Bring water and a hat, as there is little shade among the ruins.