Freetown Peninsula
Banana Islands
A small chain of islands off the Freetown Peninsula with snorkelling, fishing villages, and slave-trade history.
- Beach & Coastal
- Heritage
Heritage
Attractions (29)
Bonthe Town, Sherbro Island
Bonthe Clock Tower
One of Sierra Leone's oldest clock towers, in Bonthe town on Sherbro Island; its clock is currently out of order.
- Monument
- Heritage
Sierra Leone River Estuary
Bunce Island
Ruins of an 18th-century British slave-trading fort in the Sierra Leone River, a key transatlantic heritage site.
- Site
- Heritage
Sundu Bar junction, Koidu City, Kono
Chief Mani Sundu's Grave
Grave of Chief Mani Sundu (1902-1984) at Sundu Bar junction, Koidu, recognised in 2018 as a national historic heritage site.
- Monument
- Heritage
King Jimmy Wharf, Freetown
De Ruyter Stone
Syenite boulder at King Jimmy Wharf inscribed in 1664 for Dutch Admiral De Ruyter; proclaimed a national monument in 1948.
- Monument
- Heritage
Dublin, Banana Islands
Firing Point and Guns, Dublin
Coastal battery with cannon by the old wharf at Dublin on the Banana Islands, tied to Royal Navy anti-piracy patrols; proclaimed 1956.
- Monument
- Heritage
- Beach & Coastal
State House, Tower Hill, Freetown
Fort Thornton
Hilltop fort built 1792-1805 on Tower Hill; its bastions, proclaimed in 1949, are built into today's State House.
- Monument
- Heritage
Old Leicester Road, Freetown hills
Heddle's Farm
Ruins of an 1820 hillside house on the old Leicester Road with views over Freetown, owned from 1859 by merchant Charles Heddle.
- Site
- Monument
- Heritage
Plantain Island, off Shenge, Moyamba District
John Newton's House, Plantain Island
Ruins of a slave-trading compound on Plantain Island linked to John Newton, later the hymn writer of 'Amazing Grace'; proclaimed 1949.
- Site
- Heritage
- Beach & Coastal
Kent, Western Area Rural
Kent village and the King's Well
A historic village at the peninsula's southern tip, with the King's Well, St Edward's Church and boats to the Banana Islands.
- Heritage
- Food & Culture
- Beach & Coastal
King Jimmy Wharf, Freetown
King Jimmy Steps
Historic waterfront by King Jimmy market in Freetown, which the Commission says became a slave market; a restoration project is underway.
- Monument
- Heritage
Central Freetown
King's Yard Gate
The 1817 gateway to the King's Yard, where Africans freed from slave ships were received; it now stands at Connaught Hospital.
- Monument
- Heritage
Moyamba Town, Moyamba District
Madam Yoko's Grave
Grave in Moyamba Town of Madam Yoko, ruler of the Kpa Mende Confederacy in the late 19th century and a national hero.
- Monument
- Heritage
Tower Hill, near Parliament, Freetown
Martello Tower
Defensive tower begun on Tower Hill in 1805 after Temne attacks led by King Tom; proclaimed in 1961. Near Parliament.
- Monument
- Heritage
Nimiyama Chiefdom, Kono District
Masakpaidu Earthworks
Earthworks of a fortified Kono village from about 1800 where the Bafi and Bagbe rivers join to form the Sewa; proclaimed 1949.
- Site
- Monument
- Heritage
Cline Town, Freetown
National Railway Museum
Museum in the old Cline Town railway workshops, showing locomotives and carriages from the former Sierra Leone Railway.
- Site
- Heritage
- Entertainment
Freetown (Up Gun roundabout for the visible gun)
Old City Boundary Guns
Three late-18th-century cannon set muzzle-up to mark old Freetown's limits; the visible one stands at the Up Gun roundabout.
- Monument
- Heritage
Cline Town, Freetown
Old Fourah Bay College
Stone ruins in Cline Town of the 1840s building of Fourah Bay College, a pioneer of university education in Africa.
- Site
- Monument
- Heritage
Wallace Johnson Street, central Freetown
Old Wharf Steps
Stone steps and guard house built under Governor MacCarthy (1818-1819), leading from Wallace Johnson Street down to the old landing stage.
- Monument
- Heritage
Wara-Wara Yagala Chiefdom, Koinadugu District
Old Yagala Village
Hilltop stone-and-mud town built by the Limba in the 18th century as a refuge from slave raiders, with royal graves still visible.
- Site
- Monument
- Heritage
South of Makeni, Tonkolili District
Rogbonko Basketry Village
Temne farming village whose basket weavers demonstrate a coiling craft that echoes the sweetgrass baskets of the Gullah Geechee.
- Food & Culture
- Heritage
Bo District
Senehun Ngola
An ancestral Mende chiefdom village linked by research to the Sierra Leone-Gullah connection.
- Heritage
- Food & Culture
Sherbro Island, Bonthe District
Sherbro Island and Bonthe
Large, slow-paced island whose old port town of Bonthe keeps colonial buildings, Krio board houses and an old clock tower.
- Beach & Coastal
- Heritage
Freetown
Sierra Leone National Museum
Freetown's national museum of history and ethnography, near the site of the former Cotton Tree.
- Site
- Heritage
New England, Freetown
Sierra Leone Peace Museum
A museum on the former Special Court site telling the story of the 1991-2002 civil war and honouring its victims.
- Site
- Heritage
Regent village, Western Area Rural
St Charles Church, Regent
Stone church of 1816 in the Liberated African village of Regent, named after Governor Charles MacCarthy; a proclaimed national monument.
- Religion
- Monument
- Heritage
Kent village, Western Area Rural
St Edward's Church, Kent
Anglican church in historic Kent village at the southern tip of the Freetown Peninsula, listed among the Commission's heritage sites.
- Religion
- Monument
- Heritage
Siaka Stevens Street, Freetown
St John's Maroon Church
A small white church on Siaka Stevens Street built by Jamaican Maroons in the early 1820s, one of Freetown's oldest.
- Religion
- Monument
- Heritage
York, Western Area Rural
York Beach
Beach near York town where Krio heritage and slave-trade history meet the sea, with humpback whales passing on their yearly migration.
- Beach & Coastal
- Heritage