Clifton Heritage Park

Clifton preserves a stretch of coast at the western end of New Providence where three periods sit on the same ground: Lucayan occupation, evidenced by artefacts and a site by the shore; a loyalist plantation from the 1780s with the great house ruin and, more significantly, the stone dwellings of the enslaved people who worked it; and the village that grew after emancipation. A set of sculptures on the cliff, cast from local women, marks the emancipation story. Offshore lies the Ocean Atlas, a five-metre sculpture of a girl holding up the ocean surface, one of the largest underwater sculptures in the world, sunk here in 2014 as a reef substrate.

What you actually see

• The plantation remains - the great house ruin and the enslaved quarters.
• The emancipation sculptures - figures on the cliff cast from local women.
• Ocean Atlas - a five-metre underwater sculpture offshore.
• The Lucayan site - evidence of the island's first inhabitants.

When to go

December to May is the dry season. Mornings are cooler for walking the trails. Ocean Atlas is in shallow water and can be snorkelled from the shore in calm conditions, though most people visit it on a boat trip.

Honest expectations

The park is underfunded and facilities are basic, with signage and trail maintenance patchy. It is a thirty-minute drive from Nassau with no public transport. Ocean Atlas requires calm water and reasonable swimming ability to reach from shore. The site deserves considerably more than it gets.

Nearby

Nassau is half an hour east; the western beaches are along the same coast.