Betty’s Hope was the first large sugar plantation on Antigua, and its success led to the island’s rapid development of large-scale sugar production. 
Although the only surviving structures are two stone sugar mills and the remains of the stillhouse, the site’s importance in Antiguan history has prompted the government to begin developing it as an open air museum. About a hundred stone windmill towers dot the Antiguan landscape, and the two restored examples at Betty’s Hope provide a dramatic sense of the way these mills must have dominated the island during the hundreds of years that sugar production was the dominant industry. Betty’s Hope was built by Sir Christopher Codrington, who came to Antigua in 1674 from Barbados, and was named for his daughter.
