Colonial Landscape
Pinney House
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Nevis Background

The Nevis Heritage project is a joint venture set up in 1999 between Southampton University and the Nevis Historical and Conservation Society to investigate the prehistoric and historical heritage of the island of Nevis, a small island in the Eastern Caribbean with many past and present links to Bristol. The record was being made because of the destruction of that history by erosion (such as hurricanes) and human agencies.

To build on these links, and in recognition of the importance of slavery, sugar and Nevis in Bristol’s past, Bristol and Region Archaeological Services, part of Bristol City Museum, is participating in the Nevis Heritage Project through an initiative to provide bursaries to a small number of students of Africa-Caribbean descent from schools and sixth form colleges in Bristol. The students are offered the opportunity to study and work alongside archaeology students from Southampton University and from schools on Nevis.

The project is directed at researching three major themes-prehistoric settlements, colonial fortifications and the colonial landscape-urban and rural communities.

The Colonial Landscape-Urban and Rural Communities

The research programme commenced in 2000 was directed at the historical archaeology of both urban and rural elements of the colonial landscape of Nevis. The Early Colonial Settlement And Landscape Of Nevis And St Kitts is the title given to the project supported for three years from 2001 by the British Academy and the Society of Antiquaries of London and being undertaken in association with the Nevis Historical and Conservations Society and the St Christopher Heritage Society. The overall aims of the project are to formulate a strategy and plan for a wider study of the two islands of Nevis and St Kitts, reconstructing the colonial landscape of each island from the sea to the mountain, using the field evidence in conjunction with documentary sources, to transform our understanding of the seventeenth-century English colonisation of the Leeward Islands.

The island of Nevis is situated in the Leeward Islands in the Eastern Caribbean Its nearest neighbour, just 3 miles away is St. Kitts.

Nevis measures just 36 miles square and is dominated by Nevis peak, a volcano that rises to a height of 3,232 feet.

Christopher Columbus, on his second voyage of discovery in 1493, thought the clouds around the peak to be snow, and named the island “Nuestra Señora de las Nieves” (Our Lady of the Snows).

Nevis peak, a volcano rising to 3,232 feet.

Page updated: February 8th, 2007