Gun Hill Signal Station

Gun Hill Signal Station, St. George is the largest and most important of the military outposts in Barbados, with military associations from at least 1697. In the Militia Act of that year, when it was known as Briggs Hill, it was named as one of the four points where guns were to be placed to give alarm in the event of an invasion, so it is likely that the name Gun Hill goes back nearly 300 years.

When the signal stations were established in 1818–1819, it became the key link in the chain, passing signals from Highgate East to Moncrieffe on the cliffs of the St. John/St. Philip border, and north to the Cotton Tower, Grenade Hall, and Dover Fort. But Gun Hill was also the typical 'Hill Station' of the tropics, used as a convalescent station for the troops, and for evacuation of the Garrison in times of epidemics of yellow fever and once of cholera. There was only a small barrack, and mass evacuations went under canvas.