Fort Apollonia

Fort Apollonia stands on the seafront at Beyin, in the Jomoro Municipal District of Ghana's Western Region, roughly 90 km west of Takoradi. It is described by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board as the last fort built by the English on the Gold Coast. A Swedish trading post operated at Apollona between 1655 and 1657; a British trading post followed in 1691 and was extended into a fort between 1768 and 1770, after Nzema Chief Amenihyia granted the English Committee of Merchants permission to build on the elevated platform known as Cape Apollonia. The name is said to derive from a Portuguese explorer who sighted the area on St. Apollonia's Day.

The fort was abandoned in 1819 after the abolition of the slave trade, transferred to the Dutch in 1868 and renamed Fort Willem III, returned to Britain in 1872, and was bombarded by a British gunboat in 1873, after which it fell into ruins. The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board rehabilitated it in the 1960s and used it as a rest house. Architecturally it is irregular and square in outline, with four bastions linked by curtain walls; the larger western seaward bastion mounted nine guns and served as a slave prison.

Since 30 October 2010 the fort has housed the Museum of Nzema Culture and History, an eco-museum restored with funds from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and implemented by the Italian NGO COSPE. It is dedicated to Nzema culture and to Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Exhibits cover clan emblems, traditional festivals, traditional treatments of disease, the Amansuri ecosystem and traditional talking drums, using interactive text, object handling, and smell and sound elements. A conservation education centre and resource centre support workshops in art, drumming and dancing, and traditional medicine, along with temporary exhibitions and art performances.

Beyin sits in the Amansuri wetland and is the mainland access point for Nzulezo, the stilt village about 5 km away on the Amansuri. Nearby are Beyin beach, local guest houses and hotels, and roadside food stalls. The GMMB lists opening hours of 9:00am to 4:30pm, with the museum page giving 8:30am to 5:00pm daily; these conflict and should be confirmed before travel. Published fees were reviewed in February 2013 and current amounts are unverified. No direct fort or museum phone, email or website was found; the GMMB Central and Western Regions office at Cape Coast Castle can be reached on +233-3321 32529.