Things to do
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Fort St. Catherine
A fort above the beach where the Sea Venture survivors came ashore in 1609, begun in 1612 and rebuilt so often that what stands is largely Victorian. The magazines and tunnels cut under the ramparts hold the museum, and the guns still point out over the water.
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Gates Fort
A small fort at Town Cut, where the channel through the reef narrows to a few boat lengths, built in 1612 and named for the Sea Venture's Sir Thomas Gates. Ships pass close enough that people stand on the walls to watch them squeeze through.
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Ordnance Island
A spit reached by a short bridge from King's Square, holding a full size replica of the Deliverance, the ship the Sea Venture survivors built to carry themselves on to Virginia. Cruise tenders come alongside it.
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The St. Regis Bermuda Resort
A resort opened in 2021 at the top of the island beside Fort St Catherine, on the site travellers of an earlier generation knew as Club Med. It is the only full sized resort within walking distance of the old town.
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Achilles Bay
A pocket of sand under the walls of Fort St Catherine, tucked in far enough to stay swimmable when the north shore is rough. There is a bar on the sand and a path down from the fort road.
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Alexandra Battery
A Victorian battery above a beach made largely of sea glass, tumbled smooth over decades from a dump that once sat offshore. The gun positions are open and the beach below is what most people come down for.
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Bermuda Perfumery
A perfumery working in Bermuda since 1928, now in Stewart Hall, an eighteenth century house on Queen Street, where the scents are blended and bottled on the premises. The garden behind grows some of what goes into them.
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Featherbed Alley Printshop
A working replica of a Gutenberg press in the cellar of the St George's Historical Society Museum, set up as Bermuda's first printers would have worked. The house above it is furnished as an eighteenth century Bermudian home.
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Fort George
A hilltop fort of the 1780s covering the harbour approaches, now shared with Bermuda Radio, which tracks every vessel coming in through the reef line. The climb is short and steep and the view runs the length of the harbour.
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King's Square
The square at the head of the harbour, with the town hall on one side and replica stocks and a pillory set out on the quay. Most walking tours of the town start here, and the ducking stool re-enactments are staged off the wharf.
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Old Rectory
A small limestone house of about 1699, long said to have been built by a reformed privateer, carrying the welcoming arms staircase and tray ceilings that mark early Bermudian building. The National Trust opens it on limited days.
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Somers Garden
A walled public garden where the heart of Sir George Somers, admiral of the Sea Venture, was buried in 1610 while the rest of him was carried home to Dorset. The Prince of Wales named it on a visit in 1920.
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St. Peter's Church
The oldest Anglican church in continuous use outside the British Isles, on a site first built on in 1612, though most of the fabric standing today went up from 1713 after storms took the earlier structures. The graveyard is walled in two parts, the western section being where enslaved and free Black Bermudians were buried.
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State House
Raised in 1620 for the first parliament to sit in, and, fortifications aside, the oldest surviving building in Bermuda. The Freemasons hold the lease and pay the rent once a year, and the rent is a single peppercorn, handed over in King's Square each April.
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Tobacco Bay
A cove on the north shore sheltered by limestone stacks that stand straight out of shallow water, which makes it the gentlest snorkelling on the island for anyone who is not a strong swimmer. There is a beach bar and gear hire, and it fills when a ship is in port.
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Tucker House
The Water Street house of Henry Tucker, president of the Governor's Council through the American Revolution, kept by the National Trust with the family's cedar and silver. Joseph Hayne Rainey, later the first Black man to sit in the United States House of Representatives, cut hair here while he sat out the American Civil War, and the lane alongside is named Barber's Alley for him.
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Unfinished Church
A roofless Gothic shell begun in 1874 to replace St Peter's, abandoned when the congregation split over the plan and storms took what had been raised. The National Trust keeps it as a ruin and it is open to walk through.
