Ghana's Crumbling Heritage
Graham Norton looks at dilapidated forts and castles in West Africa
The beaches of Ghana are among the most attractive in West Africa. Frowning down on thirty-one of them are the forts and castles which, for the most part, owe their existence to the slave trade. These beaches and castles - two splendid assets for tourism - are now significant foreign currency earners for Ghana, which last year ranked sixth in Africa for tourism receipts.
The grandest castle, Elmina, was founded by the Portuguese in 1482. Gold (hence Ghana's former name as the Gold Coast) was originally their quest. But Elmina owes its present extent to the Dutch, the first slave-traders on a massive, transatlantic scale.
With its size, its curtain-wall, towers, church, ravelin, drawbridges and bastions, Elmina is a great castle in the European tradition. So is Cape Coast Castle, a few miles away, the former British Headquarters until 1876. Ghana's other castle, Christiansborg, originally Danish, and the seat of the last British Governors, is now the residence of Ghana's President and is not open to the public.
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