Betty’s Hope was Antigua’s first large-scale sugar plantation, established by the Codrington family in the 1650s and named after Christopher Codrington’s daughter. For nearly three hundred years it was the model that the rest of the island copied — and it was worked, throughout, by enslaved Africans and, after 1834, by their formally free but desperately poor descendants.
Today it is a quiet field with two stone windmill towers, the ruins of the boiling house and still house, a cistern and a small visitor centre. One mill has been restored complete with sails and machinery, the only working sugar mill of its kind in the Caribbean. There is very little tourism apparatus here, and the site is stronger for it.
Top things to do at Betty’s Hope
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See the restored windmill
The northern tower has been rebuilt with its sails, cane rollers and gearing in place. Standing underneath it makes the scale of the work — and of the labour that drove it — immediately clear.
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Read the visitor centre panels
The small centre covers the Codringtons, the sugar process and, plainly, the system of slavery the estate depended on, including estate records naming the people who were enslaved here.
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Walk the ruins
The boiling house, still house and cistern foundations spread across the field behind the mills. It takes fifteen minutes and turns an abstract history into a physical place.
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Look at the landscape
From the mills you can see across the flat central plain that was almost entirely cane by 1750. Every village in sight grew out of an estate, which is why Antiguan place names run the way they do.
How to get to Betty’s Hope
- By car: about 25 minutes east of St John’s on the road to Pares and Willikies; the site is signed and has a small car park.
- By tour: most full-day island tours include Betty’s Hope, often alongside Devil’s Bridge, which is fifteen minutes further east.
Insider tips
- The visitor centre keeps limited hours and may be closed at weekends; the site itself is open and walkable regardless.
- There is no shade in the field. Morning is much more comfortable than the middle of the day.
- Combine it with Devil’s Bridge and Long Bay for a half day that covers history, wild coast and a swim.
Best tours & tickets for Betty’s Hope
These top-rated experiences are the easiest way to enjoy Betty’s Hope and the coast around it:
