Old Road Town

Thomas Warner landed here in 1624 and founded what became the first permanent English settlement in the Caribbean, making Old Road the origin point for English colonisation of the whole region. It was the island's capital until Basseterre took over. What survives now is a small coastal village with a church, a black sand beach and Carib petroglyphs on a boulder at the edge of the settlement. Warner came for tobacco rather than sugar, and it was the tobacco crop that first kept the settlement going.

History

Thomas Warner, his wife Rebecca, his son Edward and 14 others settled here on 28 January 1624, drawn by tobacco rather than sugar cane, and the tobacco crop first supported the colony; as more settlements grew up, Basseterre had become the capital by 1727 (Wikipedia, Old Road Town).

The main sights

• The 1624 landing site - where English settlement in the Caribbean began.
• The petroglyphs - Carib carvings on a boulder at the edge of the village.
• The black sand - the volcanic beach in front of the village.
• The former capital - the island's first seat before Basseterre.

When to go

December to April is the dry season. Mornings are cooler for walking. The petroglyph boulder is best lit early.

Practical notes

Almost nothing of the seventeenth-century settlement survives above ground. Interpretation is minimal. The village is workaday and has no facilities for visitors.

Nearby

Romney Manor is above it, and Brimstone Hill is northwest.

Key facts