Gun Hill Signal Station

The signal stations had their origin in the slave rebellion of 1816. It was a very small affair; the cause was a false rumour which had been given currency among the slaves that the British Government had approved that they should be given their freedom and that this was being withheld by the authorities in Barbados.

The rebellion was immediately suppressed, but it was the first slave uprising in Barbados history and it gave the white population a severe shock. Since 1780 Barbados had had a garrison of British troops and had been the military headquarters of the Caribbean. During the Napoleonic wars it had been the main springboard for military expeditions against the French islands, and at times there were thousands of troops in the Island, many more than could be accommodated in the Bridgetown area. Some were quartered in barracks, some were billeted on the local in-habitants, and some were under canvas in places as far distant as the coastal area of St. Andrew and Doscobel in St. Peter. After the slave rebellion the military authorities reverted to the practice of maintaining detachments outside the Bridgetown area. The barracks at Speightstown and Holetown were repaired and new barracks were erected at Gun Hill and Moncreiffe.

These were at the western and eastern end respectively of the escarpment on the northern side of the parishes of St. Philip and St. George, and they comanded a view of the whole of the southern half of the Island. Though no earlier mention of the name Gun Hill has been found, the name was apparently already in use, and the site had military associations stretching back more than a century. At an early date the land belonged to a person called Brigges or Brigs, and in the Militia Act of 1697 Briggs Hill is named as one of the four points where guns were to be placed so that they could be fired to give the alarm in the eve of an invasion.