This church was built by the Maroons who arrived in the colony in 1800 as black returnees from Jamaica who were reputed to be accomplished stone masons. It is thought they converted to Christianity through the influence of the Nova Scotians who were already in the Colony. The church erected in 1822, was seen as […]

These flights of stone steps are one of the stone architecture erected during the governorship of Governor Charles Macarthy. They lead down from Wallace Johnson Street and were completed in 1818. They are often wrongly referred to as the “Portuguese Steps”. The Guard House at the top of the steps was built in 1819.

As the drive to make the Sierra Leone Colony a Christian community continued, Governor Maxwell sent a memo to the Secretary of State for the colonies requesting the construction of a church to serve as a place of worship for the citizens. The foundation was laid in 1817 by Governor MacCarthy and construction was complete […]

As the Liberated African Villages grew, it was decided that structures had to be established to cater for the spiritual and educational welfare of the emerging communities. The government agreed to finance the construction of schools and churches. In 1816, the government financed the building of a stone church the Regent, one of the Liberated […]

After the Abolition Act had come into effect and Sierra Leone had become a British Colony, the Navy were mostly involved in trying to intercept the still on-going Slave Traffic.  One of the most effective vessels charged with this responsibility was ironically a former slave vessel itself, the Black Joke, formerly called the Henriquita. Captured […]

Due to frequent attacks on Freetown in the 19th century by the Temne under the leadership of King Tom, the government became nervy about future attacks on the colony. The governor of the day instructed that a Martello Tower be built on the top of Tower Hill as a defence mechanism. Similar structures were a […]