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Brimstone Hill Fortress, St. Kitts (UNESCO-World Heritage Site)

Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Caribbean. All Photos are COPYRIGHT and PROPERTY of Rafal K. Komierowski.

Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park is an outstanding, well-preserved example of 17th- and 18th-century military architecture in a Caribbean context....New World Encyclopedia

A monument to the ingenuity of the British military engineers who designed it and to the skill, strength and endurance of the African slaves who built and maintained it.....New World Encyclopedia

One of the best preserved historical fortifications in the Americas, it is located on the island of St. Kitts in the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis in the eastern Caribbean.....New World Encyclopedia

Brimstone Hill, rising 800 feet with steep slopes and possessing a commanding view of the sea, was an ideal natural defense.....New World Encyclopedia

In its heyday, the fort on Brimstone Hill was known as =the Gibraltar of the West Indies=, referring to its imposing height and seeming invulnerability.....New World Encyclopedia

The physical location of the fortress presents panoramic vistas of forested mountains, cultivated fields, the historical township of Sandy Point, and neighboring Dutch, English, and French islands across the Caribbean Sea.....New World Encyclopedia

Brimstone Hill Fortress...crowns a hill 213 metres above sea level, and the topography allows successive defensive levels......New World Encyclopedia

The walls of the structures are predominantly of stone, laboriously fashioned from the hard volcanic rock of which the hill is composed

Brimstone Hill Fortress signified the importance of St. Kitts during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.....New World Encyclopedia

The prominent Citadel is one of the earliest and finest surviving examples of a new style of fortification known as the =polygonal system= ......New World Encyclopedia

The prominent Citadel is one of the earliest and finest surviving examples of a new style of fortification known as the =polygonal system= ......New World Encyclopedia

The physical location of the Fortress presents attractive panoramic vistas of forested mountains, cultivated fields, the historical township of Sandy Point.....New World Encyclopedia

In 1782, the French, under Admiral Comte François Joseph Paul de Grasse, laid siege to the fort....New World Encyclopedia

During the siege, the adjacent island of Nevis surrendered, and guns from Fort Charles and other small forts there were brought to St. Kitts for use against Brimstone Hill.....New World Encyclopedia

British Admiral Hood could not dislodge de Grasse, and after a month of siege, the heavily outnumbered and cut-off British garrison surrendered....New World Encyclopedia

A year later, however, the Treaty of Paris restored St. Kitts and Brimstone Hill to British rule, along with the adjacent island of Nevis....New World Encyclopedia

Following these events, the British carried out a program to augment and strengthen the fortifications, and Brimstone Hill never again fell to an enemy force......New World Encyclopedia

The fort was abandoned by the British in the mid nineteenth century, and the structures gradually decayed through vandalism and natural processes........New World Encyclopedia

Stabilization and restoration of the remaining structures started in the early 1900s, and in 1987....New World Encyclopedia

Brimstone Hill was officially declared a National Park. It was declared a World Heritage Site (UNESCO) in 1999....New World Encyclopedia

Settled by the English and the French (who shared the island between 1627 and 1713), St. Kitts became a springboard for English and French colonialism in the Caribbean.....New World Encyclopedia

After the native peoples were virtually exterminated, Africans were imported as slave labor on the sugar plantations....New World Encyclopedia

Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park , St. Kitts

Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park , St. Kitts

Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park , St. Kitts

Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park , St. Kitts

Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park , St. Kitts

Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park , St. Kitts

Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park , St. Kitts