Betty's Hope

Betty's Hope was a sugarcane plantation at Diamonds, Antigua, established in 1650 shortly after Antigua became an English colony, and it operated as a successful agricultural and industrial enterprise throughout the era of slavery. It was the first large scale sugar plantation on Antigua and belonged to the Codrington family from 1674, when Christopher Codrington acquired it and named it after his daughter Betty, until 1944. The site's surviving structures include twin windmills, a cistern complex, the ruined Great House or Buff Estate House, the Boiling House where sixteen copper vessels were used to boil cane juice into crystalline sugar, and the roofless but still arched Still House, a distillery once used to make rum. Since 1995 the buildings have been developed as an open air museum with a visitor center, managed by the Museum of Antigua and Barbuda, which has designated the site a Historical Site of Antigua and Barbuda.