British Virgin Islands / Special Interests / Culture & Heritage

This collection of island jewels are known to have entranced Christopher Columbus so much that he named them after the mythical St Ursula and her 11,000 virgins. Yet while the islands are known to have attracted many visitors to their shores over thousands of years – little evidence remains of them today. Decorated pottery and carved ceremonial stones are the only traces of the Amerindian tribes, who are thought to have settled on the BVIs before moving to larger islands – but there is little else. Colourful pirates such as Blackbeard are known to have moored up in deserted coves among the islands, but they too left no trace.

By the mid-1600s, the islands were settled first by the Dutch and then the British and slaves were brought in to work on the plantations, but lack of rainfall stymied their success. The islands were gradually left to subsistence farmers and it was only after the 1980s that their fortunes took off and the population grew thanks to the rise of banking and tourism. Today, the islands are relatively sophisticated and most of them have lost the innocence that you will still find elsewhere around the Caribbean. There is relatively little island culture left, in Tortola at least, though the authorities are diligently restoring the few windmills and nice old Caribbean buildings that remain. Tortola is a busy, developed and overwhelmingly modern Caribbean island. Virgin Gorda is much less developed and still has a sleepy, West Indian air to it, but if you want to experience traditional, simple BVI life you need to go to Jost van Dyke and Anegada, which are still barely touched.