A fishing harbour under a striped lighthouse, with a 17th century fort and painted canoes on the beach.
What Jamestown looks like
The stands in red and white bands above the coastal road, a cylindrical stone tower about 28 metres tall with a keeper's house attached. From its gallery the view runs over , and the old town below. Painted wooden canoes are hauled up along the sand beneath it, drawn in close to the fort and the harbour wall.
James Fort, built by the British in the 1600s, stands below the lighthouse at the middle of the district. Narrow streets wrap close around its walls, and the courtyards inside carry small high windows under corrugated iron roofs. The quarter sits just along the shore, single storey painted houses with boxing gyms opening straight onto the lanes.
Murals from the Chale Wote Street Art Festival cover walls through the back streets, added during the festival each year. The Dutch stands a short walk away in the neighbouring Usshertown district. The Ga Mantse Palace gate, a pair of stone lions flanking its low entrance, opens onto the same street grid.
A cream coloured colonial building with an arched ground floor arcade stands on a corner near the fort, its shaded walkway running the length of the block. A back lane just inland is unpaved, lined with market stalls and timber shacks under corrugated roofs, with motorcycles parked along the edge.
Shot in Jamestown
Jamestown Fisherman, a 2014 Ghanaian comic series, follows a local fisherman and his family through the working harbour below the lighthouse. The show plays out across that harbour and the streets around it.
Jamestown Fisherman, 2014
The fishing harbour
Jamestown Fisherman follows Nii Lampado and his family in the harbour community below the lighthouse. The series plays out among the canoes and the sand, the same beach pictured here. Street View
What Jamestown can double for
Cape Coast in Cape Coast, Ghana
Cape Coast Castle stands over its own fishing harbour and old town much the way James Fort does, white ramparts above canoes pulled up on the sand. The scale of the fort and the narrow streets behind it read close to the same on camera. Cape Coast's castle is larger and more restored, so a tighter street level frame hides the difference better than a wide establishing shot. Try searching fort fishing harbour now.
Elmina in Elmina, Ghana
St. George's Castle stands the same way above Elmina's fishing harbour, canoes drawn up under its walls. The old town's narrow lanes and single storey houses match Jamestown's scale closely. Elmina's castle is a heavier Portuguese silhouette, so keep the fort itself out of wide shots meant to pass for Jamestown. Try searching fishing harbour under a fort now.
Ouidah in Ouidah, Benin
Ouidah's old Portuguese fort stands close to its own fishing beach and market lanes, a smaller echo of James Fort's relationship to the harbour. French colonial signage and a different language on storefronts would need dressing out, and the fort itself is smaller in true scale. Try searching Portuguese fort fishing beach now.
